Sample records for evaporating primordial black

The usual explanation of the isotropy of the universe is that inflation would have smoothed out any inhomogeneities. However, if the universe was initially fractal or in a foam like state, an overall inflation would have left it in the same state. I suggest that the universe did indeed begin with a tangled web of wormholes connecting pairs of black holes but that the inflationary expansion was unstable: wormholes that are slightly smaller correspond to black holes that are hotter than the cosmological background and evaporate away. This picture is supported by calculations with Raphael Bousso of the evaporation of primordialblack holes in the s-wave and large N approximations.

The unconfirmed prediction of quantum evaporation of primordialblack holes (PBHs) is considered together with the related unanswered questions of whether PBHs ever existed and whether any could still exist. The behavior of the positrons from PHBs is modeled in relation to three facts. Firstly, the integrated emitted number spectrum of positrons is six to eight times larger than that of photons. Secondly, positrons emitted from PBHs lose energy and annihilate, producing a prominent line at 511 keV which is redshifted by the expansion of the universe. Thirdly, these photons may be detectable in the X-ray and low gamma ray energy ranges. The model predicts a flux which is significantly inferior to the instrument sensitivities of the foreseeable future.

Many early universe theories predict the creation of PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs). PBHs could have masses ranging from the Planck mass to 105 solar masses or higher depending on the size of the universe at formation. A Black Hole (BH) has a Hawking temperature which is inversely proportional to its mass. Hence a sufficiently small BH will quasi-thermally radiate particles at an ever-increasing rate as emission lowers its mass and raises its temperature. The final moments of this evaporation phase should be explosive and its description is dependent on the particle physics model. In this work we investigate the final few seconds of BH evaporation, using the Standard Model and incorporating the most recent Large Hadron Collider (LHC) results, and provide a new parameterization for the instantaneous emission spectrum. We calculate for the first time energy-dependent PBH burst light curves in the GeV/TeV energy range. Moreover, we explore PBH burst search methods and potential observational PBH burst signatures. We have found a unique signature in the PBH burst light curves that may be detectable by GeV/TeV gamma-ray observatories such as the High Altitude Water Cerenkov (HAWC) observatory. The implications of beyond the Standard Model theories on the PBH burst observational characteristics are also discussed, including potential sensitivity of the instantaneous photon detection rate to a squark threshold in the 5-10 TeV range.

For many early universe theories predict the creation of PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs). PBHs could have masses ranging from the Planck mass to 105 solar masses or higher depending on the size of the universe at formation. A Black Hole (BH) has a Hawking temperature which is inversely proportional to its mass. Hence a sufficiently small BH will quasi-thermally radiate particles at an ever-increasing rate as emission lowers its mass and raises its temperature. Moreover, the final moments of this evaporation phase should be explosive and its description is dependent on the particle physics model. In this work we investigatemore » the final few seconds of BH evaporation, using the Standard Model and incorporating the most recent Large Hadron Collider (LHC) results, and provide a new parameterization for the instantaneous emission spectrum. We calculate for the first time energy-dependent PBH burst light curves in the GeV/TeV energy range. Moreover, we explore PBH burst search methods and potential observational PBH burst signatures. We have found a unique signature in the PBH burst light curves that may be detectable by GeV/TeV gamma-ray observatories such as the High Altitude Water Cerenkov (HAWC) observatory. Finally, the implications of beyond the Standard Model theories on the PBH burst observational characteristics are also discussed, including potential sensitivity of the instantaneous photon detection rate to a squark threshold in the 5–10 TeV range.« less

The wave function of the universe is usually taken to be a functional of the three-metric on a spacelike section, Σ, which is measured. It is sometimes better, however, to work in the conjugate representation, where the wave function depends on a quantity related to the second fundamental form of Σ. This makes it possible to ensure that Σ is part of a Lorentzian universe by requiring that the argument of the wave function be purely imaginary. The authors demonstrate the advantages of this formalism first in the well-known examples of the nucleation of a de Sitter or a Nariai universe. They then use it to calculate the pair creation rate for submaximal black holes in de Sitter space, which had been thought to vanish semiclassically. They also study the quantum evolution of asymptotically de Sitter black holes. For black holes whose size is comparable to that of the cosmological horizon, this process differs significantly from the evaporation of asymptotically flat black holes. The model includes the one-loop effective action in the s-wave and large-N approximation. Black holes of the maximal mass are in equilibrium. Unexpectedly, the authors find that nearly maximal quantum Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes antievaporate. However, there is a different perturbative mode that leads to evaporation. They show that this mode will always be excited when a pair of maximal cosmological black holes nucleates.

Cosmic gamma-ray bursts from evaporatingprimordialblack holes for the evaporation model with relativistic phase transitions have been sought in the data from the Andyrchy extensive air shower (EAS) array. This model predicts ultrashort (≃10-13 s) gamma-ray bursts with the spectrum with the maximum intensities simultaneously at the photon energies of 100 MeV and 100 GeV. Such ultrashort gamma-ray bursts can be detected by EAS arrays located on mountains as EASs with a uniform lateral distribution. A limit on the concentration of evaporatingprimordialblack holes in a local region of the Galaxy for this evaporation model has been obtained from information accumulated during a live time of 4.23 yr.

Data taken with ACT2 and ACT3 between 1995 and 1997 are used to search for 0.1 s bursts of TeV gamma ray from evaporatingprimordialblack holes (PBHs). There is no evidence for such bursts in the dataset. Using the result, the upper limit of 3×108pc-3yr-1 on the rate-density of evaporating PBHs is set in the vicinity of the solar system at a 99% confidence level.

Universal observational feature of microscopic primordialblack holes is the Hawking emission which is believed to occur in the regime of noninteracting quark-gluon jets and their products. Then, stringent upper limit on the number density of primordialblack holes seems to rule out the possibility of their discovery in the near future. Contrary to this widely accepted opinion, we show that, when the black-hole temperature exceeds 10 GeV, the charged particle outflow from a black hole becomes plasma and the magnetohydrodynamical regime of expansion can be realized. In this case, the kinetic energy of ejected particles can be converted into the 0.1-1 MeV γ-rays due to the synchrotron radiation and electromagnetic cascade in the close-to-equipartition turbulent magnetic field. Also, the cascade leads to the significant increase of photon flux in the sub-GeV range. As a result, a black hole with mass below 1012 g becomes a transient γ-ray source with luminosity growing according to the explosive-type law. We show that up to several per cent of the gamma-ray bursts detected by BATSE can be associated with evaporatingblack holes with temperature exceeding ~1 TeV and masses below 1010 g, located at distances within ~1 pc from the Earth. .

Stephen Hawking's prediction that black holes should radiate like black bodies has several important consequences, including the possibility of the detection of small (~1015 g) black holes created in the very early universe. The detection of such primordialblack holes (PBHs) would be an important discovery, not only confirming Hawking's theory, but also providing valuable insights into the history of the early universe. A search through 5.5 years of archival data from the Whipple Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescope is made for TeV gamma-ray bursts on 1, 3, and 5 s timescales. On the basis of a null result from this direct search for PBH evaporations, an upper limit of 1.08 × 106 pc-3 yr-1 (99% CL) is set on the PBH evaporation rate in the local region of the galaxy, assuming the Standard Model of particle physics. This is more than a factor of two better than the previous limit at this energy range and includes longer timescales than have previously been explored. Comparison of this result with previous limits on the fraction of the critical density comprised by PBHs, Ωpbh, depends strongly on assumptions made about PBH clustering; in models predicting strong PBH clustering, the limit in this work could be as many as ten orders of magnitude more stringently than those set by diffuse MeV gamma-ray observations.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale. Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally. PBHs with initial masses of ~ 5.0 × 10¹⁴ g should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the GeV – TeV energy range. The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 to 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum. Due to its large field-of-view, more than 90% duty cycle and sensitivity up to 100 TeV gamma rays, the Milagro observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts. Based on a search on the Milagro data, we report new PBH burst rate density upper limits over a range of PBH observation times. In addition, we report the sensitivity of the Milagro successor, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, to PBH evaporation events.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale. Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally. PBHs with initial masses of ~ 5.0 × 10¹⁴ g should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the GeV – TeV energy range. The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 tomore » 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum. Due to its large field-of-view, more than 90% duty cycle and sensitivity up to 100 TeV gamma rays, the Milagro observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts. Based on a search on the Milagro data, we report new PBH burst rate density upper limits over a range of PBH observation times. In addition, we report the sensitivity of the Milagro successor, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, to PBH evaporation events.« less

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale. Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally. PBHs with initial masses of ∼5.0 × 1014 g should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the GeV-TeV energy range. The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 to 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum. Due to its large field-of-view, more than 90% duty cycle and sensitivity up to 100 TeV gamma rays, the Milagro observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts. Based on a search on the Milagro data, we report new PBH burst rate density upper limits over a range of PBH observation times. In addition, we report the sensitivity of the Milagro successor, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, to PBH evaporation events.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale. Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally. PBHs with initial masses of approx.5.0 x 10(exp 14) g should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the GeV-TeV energy range. The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 to 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum. Due to its large field-of-view, more than 90% duty cycle and sensitivity up to 100 TeV gamma rays, the Milagro observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts. Based on a search on the Milagro data, we report new PBH burst rate density upper limits over a range of PBH observation times. In addition, we report the sensitivity of the Milagro successor, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, to PBH evaporation events.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale. Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally. PBHs with initial masses of approximately 5.0 x 10 (sup 14) grams should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the gigaelectronvolt - teraelectronvolt energy range. The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 to 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum. Due to its large field-of-view, more than 90 percent duty cycle and sensitivity up to 100 teraelectronvolt gamma rays, the Milagro observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts. Based on a search on the Milagro data, we report new PBH burst rate density upper limits over a range of PBH observation times. In addition, we report the sensitivity of the Milagro successor, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, to PBH evaporation events.

It is argued that primordialblack holes with initial masses satisfying M<1015g, instead of having explode, might currently be in a quasistable phase contributing to a tiny fraction of the measured dark matter. This statement is based on a computation of black hole evaporation in which energy conservation is taken into account that shows that the backreaction to Hawking radiation favors the quasistabilization of the black hole. The result is specifically shown for general spherically symmetric quantum black holes described by an effective metric independently of the specific framework from which it is derived. The quintessential primordialblack hole is fully analyzed as an example.

Clusters of primordialblack holes may cause the formation of quasars in the early Universe. In turn, radiation from these quasars may lead to the reionization of the Universe. However, the evaporation of primordialblack holes via Hawking’s mechanism may also contribute to the ionization of matter. The possibility of matter ionization via the evaporation of primordialblack holes with allowance for existing constraints on their density is discussed. The contribution to ionization from the evaporation of primordialblack holes characterized by their preset mass spectrum can roughly be estimated at about 10{sup −3}.

Nonthermal histories for the early universe have received notable attention as they are a rich source of phenomenology, while also being well motivated by top-down approaches to beyond the Standard Model physics. The early (pre-big bang nucleosynthesis) matter phase in these models leads to enhanced growth of density perturbations on sub-Hubble scales. Here, we consider whether primordialblack hole formation associated with the enhanced growth is in conflict with existing observations. Such constraints depend on the tilt of the primordial power spectrum, and we find that nonthermal histories are tightly constrained in the case of a significantly blue spectrum. Alternatively, if dark matter is taken to be of nonthermal origin, we can restrict the primordial power spectrum on scales inaccessible to cosmic microwave background and large scale structure observations. We establish constraints for a wide range of scalar masses (reheat temperatures) with the most stringent bounds resulting from the formation of 1015 g black holes. These black holes would be evaporating today and are constrained by FERMI observations. We also consider whether the breakdown of the coherence of the scalar oscillations on subhorizon scales can lead to a Jean's pressure preventing black hole formation and relaxing our constraints. Our main conclusion is that primordialblack hole constraints, combined with existing constraints on nonthermal weakly interacting massive particles, favor a primordial spectrum closer to scale invariance or a red tilted spectrum.

A population of very light primordialblack holes which evaporate before nucleosynthesis begins is unconstrained unless the decaying black holes leave stable relics. We show that gravitons Hawking radiated from these black holes would source a substantial stochastic background of high frequency gravititational waves (10(12) Hz or more) in the present Universe. These black holes may lead to a transient period of matter-dominated expansion. In this case the primordial Universe could be temporarily dominated by large clusters of "Hawking stars" and the resulting gravitational wave spectrum is independent of the initial number density of primordialblack holes. PMID:19792364

We consider two quantum cosmological models with a massive scalar field: an ordinary Friedmann universe and a universe containing primordialblack holes. For both models we discuss the complex solutions to the Euclidean Einstein equations. Using the probability measure obtained from the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary proposal we find that the only unsuppressed black holes start at the Planck size but can grow with the horizon scale during the roll down of the scalar field to the minimum.

The standard model of quarks and leptons is used to discuss the signatures of black-hole evaporations. A firm bound on the primordialblack hole abundance is obtained from MeV data. It is argued that the MeV bound can be improved by exploiting the new generation of TeV and PeV telescopes.

We study the possibility of reheating the universe through the evaporation of primordialblack holes created at the end of inflation. This is shown to allow for the unification of inflation with dark matter or dark energy, or both, under the dynamics of a single scalar field. We determine the necessary conditions to recover the standard big bang by the time of nucleosynthesis after reheating through black holes.

We investigate PrimordialBlack Hole (PBH) formation by which we mean black holes produced in the early Universe during radiation domination. After discussing the range of PBH mass permitted in the original mechanism of Carr and Hawking, hybrid inflation with parametric resonance is presented as an existence theorem for PBHs of arbitrary mass. As proposed in arXiv:1510.00400, PBHs with many solar masses can provide a solution to the dark matter problem in galaxies. PBHs can also explain dark matter observed in clusters and suggest a primordial origin for Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) in galactic cores.

We consider rotating primordialblack holes (PBHs) and study the effect of accretion of radiation in the radiation-dominated era. The central part of our analysis deals with the role of the angular momentum parameter on the evolution of PBHs. We find that both the accretion and evaporation rates decrease with an increase in the angular momentum parameter, but the rate of evaporation decreases more rapidly than the rate of accretion. This shows that the evaporation time of PBHs is prolonged with an increase in the angular momentum parameter. We also note that the lifetime of rotating PBHs increases with an increase in the accretion efficiency of radiation as in the case of nonrotating PBHs.

We argue that a primordialblack hole is a natural and unique candidate for all dark matter. We show that, in a smooth-hybrid new double inflation model, a right amount of the primordialblack holes, with a sharply-defined mass, can be produced at the end of the smooth-hybrid regime, through preheating. We first consider masses < 10{sup −7}M{sub s}un which are allowed by all the previous constraints. We next discuss much heavier mass 10{sup 5}M{sub s}un hinted at by entropy, and galactic size evolution, arguments. Effects on the running of the scalar spectral index are computed.

Hawking had shown that black holes radiate with a temperature inversely proportional to their mass, thereby losing energy and hence mass. For sufficiently small masses (less than 1015 g) the black hole would evaporate today and hence has a "life" equal to the present age of the universe. One explanation of the observed acceleration of the universe is by phantom energy. In 2010 Jamil and Qadir have showed that this energy enhances the rate of evaporation. Thus, to have a primordialblack hole evaporating today, its initial mass should be larger than 1015 g or the primordialblack holes of mass less than 1015 g should evaporate earlier. In fact, it was claimed that the black holes would be ten orders of magnitude larger! This effect is revisited and its dependence on the value of equation of state parameter is studied. It is found that the effect of phantom energy for the 1015 g black hole is negligible but for a 1022 g black hole would be significant. In that case, though, the black hole would not be now exploding. The mass at which the effect of phantom energy equals the effect of Hawking radiation has been called the transition mass. The transition mass has been discussed and the correction term in the lifetime for primordialblack holes is computed.

Primordialblack holes (PBHs) are a useful tool in cosmology to probe primordial inhomogeneities on small scales that reenter the Hubble radius during the radiation dominated epoch. In this paper, a phenomenon we call the double formation of PBHs, described below, is explored. Suppose there exists a highly perturbed region which will collapse to form a PBH after the horizon crossing of this region, and farther that this region is superposed on a perturbed region of a much larger scale, which also collapses upon its reentry. One then expects the collapse of the central smaller region at the time of the crossing of this region, followed by another collapse of the larger perturbation at the time of its respective crossing. The smaller PBH, formed earlier, should be swallowed in the second collapse leading to a single larger PBH as the final state. This paper reports the first direct numerical confirmation of such double PBH formation. Related to this, we also discuss the effects of high-frequency modes on the formation of PBHs, which turn out to facilitate the formation of PBHs, thereby potentially increasing the abundance of PBHs by several orders of magnitude.

The hydrodynamic picture of the formation of primordialblack holes (PBH) at the early stages of expansion of the Universe is considered. It is assumed that close to singularity, expansion occurs in a quasi-isotropic way. Using an EVM, a spherically symmetrical nonlinear problem of the evolution of primary strong deviation from the Fridman solution was solved. What these deviations must be, so that the formation of PBH occurred was clarified. Attention was devoted to the role of pressure gradients. It is pointed out that at the moment of formation of PBH, only a small part of matter enters into it, primarily the component of perturbation. It is also pointed out that at this moment, the mass of PBH essentially is smaller than the mass considered within the cosmic horizon. The possibility of changing the mass of the PBH as a result of accretion is analyzed.

The quark and gluon emission from primordialblack holes (PBHs) which may have formed from initial density perturbations or phase transitions in the early universe are investigated. If the PBHs formed from scale-invariant initial density perturbations in the radiation dominated era, it is found that the emission can explain or contribute significantly to the extragalactic photon and interstellar cosmic-ray electron, positron, and antiproton spectra around 0.1-1 GeV. In particular, the PBH emission strongly resembles the cosmic-ray gamma-ray spectrum between 50 and 170 MeV. The upper limits on the PBH density today from the gamma-ray, e(+), e(-), and antiproton data are comparable, provided that the PBHs cluster to the same degree as the other matter in the Galactic halo.

An evaporatingblack hole in the presence of an extra spatial dimension would undergo an explosive phase of evaporation. We show that such an event, involving a primordialblack hole, can produce a detectable, distinguishable electromagnetic pulse, signaling the existence of an extra dimension of size L~10-18-10-20 m. We derive a generic relationship between the Lorentz factor of a pulse-producing 'fireball' and the TeV energy scale. For an ordinary toroidally compactified extra dimension, transient radio-pulse searches probe the electroweak energy scale (~0.1 TeV), enabling comparison with the Large Hadron Collider.

Recently we have proposed a novel method to probe primordial gravitational waves from upper bounds on the abundance of primordialblack holes (PBHs). When the amplitude of primordial tensor perturbations generated in the early Universe is fairly large, they induce substantial scalar perturbations due to their second-order effects. If these induced scalar perturbations are too large when they reenter the horizon, then PBHs are overproduced, their abundance exceeding observational upper limits. That is, primordial tensor perturbations on superhorizon scales can be constrained from the absence of PBHs. In our recent paper we have only shown simple estimations of these new constraints, and hence in this paper, we present detailed derivations, solving the Einstein equations for scalar perturbations induced at second order in tensor perturbations. We also derive an approximate formula for the probability density function of induced density perturbations, necessary to relate the abundance of PBHs to the primordial tensor power spectrum, assuming primordial tensor perturbations follow Gaussian distributions. Our new upper bounds from PBHs are compared with other existing bounds obtained from big bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background, LIGO/Virgo and pulsar timing arrays.

We propose a unified model of primordialblack holes and soliton dark matter formation. Dynamic of spherically symmetric clumps of scalar field is considered in Newtonian approximation. The formation of hidden mass of the Universe is discussed. Numerical solution of the system of interacting scalar and gravitational fields is used to obtain the mass of a clumps.

Calculations of the rate of local primordialblack hole (PBH) explosions often assume that the PBHs can be highly concentrated into galaxies, thereby weakening the Page-Hawking limit on the cosmological density of PBHs. But if the PBHs are concentrated by a factor exceeding c/(H_{0 }R0) 4 x 10 , where R_{0 }= 8.5 kpc is the scale of the Milky Way, then the steady emission from the PBHs in the halo will produce an anisotropic high-latitude diffuse gamma-ray intensity larger than the observed anisotropy. This provides a limit on the rate density of evaporating PBHs of 0.4 pc -3 yr -1, which is more than 6 orders of magnitude lower than recent experimental limits. However, the weak observed anisotropic high-latitude diffuse gamma-ray intensity is consistent with the idea that the dark matter that closes the universe is Planck mass remnants of evaporatedblack holes.

Baryogenesis at the end of extended inflation is studied. Extended inflation is brought to an end by the collisions of bubble walls surrounding regions of true vacuum, a process which produces particles well out of thermal equilibrium. The possibility that the wall collisions may provide a significant density of primordialblack holes is considered and their possible role in generating a baryon asymmetry is examined.

Verlinde recently suggested that gravity, inertia, and even spacetime may be emergent properties of an underlying thermodynamic theory. This vision was motivated in part by Jacobson's 1995 surprise result that the Einstein equations of gravity follow from the thermodynamic properties of event horizons. Taking a first tentative step in such a program, we derive the evaporation rate (or radiation spectrum) from black hole event horizons in a spacetime-free manner. Our result relies on a Hilbert space description of black hole evaporation, symmetries therein which follow from the inherent high dimensionality of black holes, global conservation of the no-hair quantities, and the existence of Penrose processes. Our analysis is not wedded to standard general relativity and so should apply to extended gravity theories where we find that the black hole area must be replaced by some other property in any generalized area theorem. PMID:21902381

We reinspect the calculation for the mass fraction of primordialblack holes (PBHs) which are formed from primordial perturbations, finding that performing the calculation using the comoving curvature perturbation R{sub c} in the standard way vastly overestimates the number of PBHs, by many orders of magnitude. This is because PBHs form shortly after horizon entry, meaning modes significantly larger than the PBH are unobservable and should not affect whether a PBH forms or not—this important effect is not taken into account by smoothing the distribution in the standard fashion. We discuss alternative methods and argue that the density contrast, Δ, should be used instead as super-horizon modes are damped by a factor k{sup 2}. We make a comparison between using a Press-Schechter approach and peaks theory, finding that the two are in close agreement in the region of interest. We also investigate the effect of varying the spectral index, and the running of the spectral index, on the abundance of primordialblack holes.

We show that density spikes begin to form from dark matter particles around primordialblack holes immediately after their formation at the radiation-dominated cosmological stage. This stems from the fact that in the thermal velocity distribution of particles there are particles with low velocities that remain in finite orbits around black holes and are not involved in the cosmological expansion. The accumulation of such particles near black holes gives rise to density spikes. These spikes are considerably denser than those that are formed later by the mechanism of secondary accretion. The density spikes must be bright gamma-ray sources. Comparison of the calculated signal from particle annihilation with the Fermi-LAT data constrains the present-day cosmological density parameter for primordialblack holes with masses M BH ≥ 10-8 M ⊙ from above by values from ΩBH ≤ 1 to ΩBH ≤ 10-8, depending on MBH. These constraints are several orders of magnitude more stringent than other known constraints.

Several authors, most notably Heckler, have claimed that the observable Hawking emission from a microscopic black hole is significantly modified by the formation of a photosphere around the black hole due to QED or QCD interactions between the emitted particles. In this paper we analyze these claims and identify a number of physical and geometrical effects which invalidate these scenarios. We point out two key problems. First, the interacting particles must be causally connected to interact, and this condition is satisfied by only a small fraction of the emitted particles close to the black hole. Second, a scattered particle requires a distance ˜E/me2 for completing each bremsstrahlung interaction, with the consequence that it is improbable for there to be more than one complete bremsstrahlung interaction per particle near the black hole. These two effects have not been included in previous analyses. We conclude that the emitted particles do not interact sufficiently to form a QED photosphere. Similar arguments apply in the QCD case and prevent a QCD photosphere (chromosphere) from developing when the black hole temperature is much greater than ΛQCD, the threshold for QCD particle emission. Additional QCD phenomenological arguments rule out the development of a chromosphere around black hole temperatures of order ΛQCD. In all cases, the observational signatures of a cosmic or Galactic halo background of primordialblack holes or an individual black hole remain essentially those of the standard Hawking model, with little change to the detection probability. We also consider the possibility, as proposed by Belyanin et al. and D. Cline et al., that plasma interactions between the emitted particles form a photosphere, and we conclude that this scenario too is not supported.

Regular (nonsingular) space-times are given that describe the formation of a (locally defined) black hole from an initial vacuum region, its quiescence as a static region, and its subsequent evaporation to a vacuum region. The static region is Bardeen-like, supported by finite density and pressures, vanishing rapidly at large radius and behaving as a cosmological constant at small radius. The dynamic regions are Vaidya-like, with ingoing radiation of positive-energy flux during collapse and negative-energy flux during evaporation, the latter balanced by outgoing radiation of positive-energy flux and a surface pressure at a pair creation surface. The black hole consists of a compact space-time region of trapped surfaces, with inner and outer boundaries that join circularly as a single smooth trapping horizon. PMID:16486679

We revisit the question whether the running-mass inflation model allows the formation of PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) that are sufficiently long-lived to serve as candidates for Dark Matter. We incorporate recent cosmological data, including the WMAP 7-year results. Moreover, we include ''the running of the running'' of the spectral index of the power spectrum, as well as the renormalization group ''running of the running'' of the inflaton mass term. Our analysis indicates that formation of sufficiently heavy, and hence long-lived, PBHs still remains possible in this scenario. As a by-product, we show that the additional term in the inflaton potential still does not allow significant negative running of the spectral index.

We study the process of primordialblack hole (PBH) formation at the beginning of the radiation era for the cosmological scenario in which the inflaton is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (axion) and there is a coupling of the inflaton with some gauge field. In this model inflation is accompanied by the gauge quanta production, and a strong rise of the curvature power spectrum amplitude at small scales (along with non-Gaussianity) is predicted. We show that data on PBH searches can be used for a derivation of essential constraints on the model parameters in such an axion inflation scenario. We compare our numerical results with the similar results published earlier, in the work [A. Linde, S. Mooij, and E. Pajer, Phys. Rev. D 87, 103506 (2013)].

Stephen Hawking's prediction that black holes should radiate like black bodies has several important consequences, including the possibility for the detection of small (˜10^15 g) black holes created in the very early universe. The detection of such primordialblack holes (PBHs) would not only validate Hawking's theory, but would provide useful insights into the history of the early universe. A search through 5.5 years of archival data from the Whipple Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescope was made for TeV gamma-ray bursts on 1 s, 3 s, and 5 s timescales. Based on a null result, an upper-limit on the evaporation rate of PBHs of 2.69 x10^6 pc-3 yr^- 1 (99% CL) was made, assuming the Standard Model of particle physics. When combined with the results of an earlier search through Whipple data, this limit was lowered to 1.33 x10^6 pc-3 yr-1, which is nearly a factor of 2 better than the previous limit at this energy range.

In models with a low quantum gravity scale, fast proton decay can be avoided by localizing quarks and leptons to separated positions in an extra 1/TeV sized dimension with gauge and Higgs fields living throughout. Black holes with masses of the order of the quantum gravity scale are therefore expected to evaporate nonuniversally, preferentially radiating directly into quarks or leptons but not both. Should black holes be copiously produced at a future hadron collider, we find the ratio of final state jets to charged leptons to photons is 113:8:1, which differs from previous analyses that assumed all standard model fields live at the same point in the extra dimensional space. PMID:12570482

The detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) in the solar neighborhood would have very important implications for GRB phenomenology. The leading theories for cosmological GRBs would not be able to explain such events. The final bursts of evaporatingprimordialblack holes (PBHs), however, would be a natural explanation for local GRBs. We present a novel technique that can constrain the distance to GRBs using detections from widely separated, non-imaging spacecraft. This method can determine the actual distance to the burst if it is local. We applied this method to constrain distances to a sample of 36 short-duration GRBs detected bymore » the Interplanetary Network (IPN) that show observational properties that are expected from PBH evaporations. These bursts have minimum possible distances in the 1013–1018 cm (7–105 au) range, which are consistent with the expected PBH energetics and with a possible origin in the solar neighborhood, although none of the bursts can be unambiguously demonstrated to be local. Furthermore, assuming that these bursts are real PBH events, we estimate lower limits on the PBH burst evaporation rate in the solar neighborhood.« less

The detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) in the solar neighborhood would have very important implications for GRB phenomenology. The leading theories for cosmological GRBs would not be able to explain such events. The final bursts of evaporatingprimordialblack holes (PBHs), however, would be a natural explanation for local GRBs. We present a novel technique that can constrain the distance to GRBs using detections from widely separated, non-imaging spacecraft. This method can determine the actual distance to the burst if it is local. We applied this method to constrain distances to a sample of 36 short-duration GRBs detected by the Interplanetary Network (IPN) that show observational properties that are expected from PBH evaporations. These bursts have minimum possible distances in the 1013–1018 cm (7–105 au) range, which are consistent with the expected PBH energetics and with a possible origin in the solar neighborhood, although none of the bursts can be unambiguously demonstrated to be local. Assuming that these bursts are real PBH events, we estimate lower limits on the PBH burst evaporation rate in the solar neighborhood.

Recently, it has been shown that the primordialblack holes (PBHs) produced by near critical collapse in the expanding universe have a scaling mass relation similar to that of black holes produced in asymptotically flat spacetime. Distinct from PBHs formed with a mass about the size of the horizon mass (type I), the PBHs with the scaling relation (type II) can be created with a range of masses at a given formation time. In general, only the case in which the PBH formation is concentrated at one epoch has been considered. However, it is expected that PBH formation is possible over a broad range of epochs if the density fluctuation has a rather large amplitude and smooth scale dependence. In this paper, we study the PBH formation for both types assuming the power spectrum of double inflationary models in which the small scale fluctuations could have large amplitudes independent of the CMBR anisotropy. The mass spectrum of type II PBHs is newly constructed without limiting the PBH formation period. The double inflationary power spectrum is assumed to be of double simple power law which are smoothly connected. Under the assumed power spectrum, the accumulation of small PBHs formed at later times is important and the mass range is significantly broadened for both types. The PBH mass spectra are far smoother than the observed MACHO spectrum due to our assumption of a smooth spectrum. In order to fit the observation, a more spiky spectrum is required.

We study the quantum evolution of black holes immersed in a de Sitter background space. For black holes whose size is comparable to that of the cosmological horizon, this process differs significantly from the evaporation of asymptotically flat black holes. Our model includes the one-loop effective action in the s-wave and large N approximation. Black holes of the maximal mass are in equilibrium. Unexpectedly, we find that nearly maximal quantum Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes anti-evaporate. However, there is a different perturbative mode that leads to evaporation. We show that this mode will always be excited when a pair of cosmological holes nucleates.

We present a model for studying the formation and evaporation of nonsingular (quantum corrected) black holes. The model is based on a generalized form of the dimensionally reduced, spherically symmetric Einstein-Hilbert action and includes a suitably generalized Polyakov action to provide a mechanism for radiation backreaction. The equations of motion describing self-gravitating scalar field collapse are derived in local form both in null co-ordinates and in Painleve-Gullstrand (flat slice) co-ordinates. They provide the starting point for numerical studies of complete spacetimes containing dynamical horizons that bound a compact trapped region. Such spacetimes have been proposed in the past as solutions to the information loss problem because they possess neither an event horizon nor a singularity. Since the equations of motion in our model are derived from a diffeomorphism invariant action they preserve the constraint algebra and the resulting energy momentum tensor is manifestly conserved.

We study the possibility that particle production during inflation can source the required power spectrum for dark matter (DM) primordialblack holes (PBH) formation. We consider the scalar and the gauge quanta production in inflation models, where in the latter case, we focus in two sectors: inflaton coupled i) directly and ii) gravitationally to a U(1) gauge field. We do not assume any specific potential for the inflaton field. Hence, in the gauge production case, in a model independent way we show that the non-production of DM PBHs puts stronger upper bound on the particle production parameter. Our analysis show that this bound is more stringent than the bounds from the bispectrum and the tensor-to-scalar ratio derived by gauge production in these models. In the scenario where the inflaton field coupled to a scalar field, we put an upper bound on the amplitude of the generated scalar power spectrum by non-production of PBHs. As a by-product we also show that the required scalar power spectrum for PBHs formation is lower when the density perturbations are non-Gaussian in comparison to the Gaussian density perturbations.

Primordialblack holes (PBHs) can form in the early Universe from the collapse of rare, large density fluctuations. They have never been observed, but this fact is enough to constrain the amplitude of fluctuations on very small scales which cannot be otherwise probed. Because PBHs form only in very rare large fluctuations, the number of PBHs formed is extremely sensitive to changes in the shape of the tail of the fluctuation distribution — which depends on the amount of non-Gaussianity present. We first study how local non-Gaussianity of arbitrary size up to fifth order affects the abundance and constraints from PBHs, finding that they depend strongly on even small amounts of non-Gaussianity and the upper bound on the allowed amplitude of the power spectrum can vary by several orders of magnitude. The sign of the non-linearity parameters (f{sub NL}, g{sub NL}, etc.) are particularly important. We also study the abundance and constraints from PBHs in the curvaton scenario, in which case the complete non-linear probability distribution is known, and find that truncating to any given order (i.e. to order f{sub NL} or g{sub NL}, etc.) does not give accurate results.

This Letter aims at showing that the observation of evaporatingblack holes should allow the usual Hawking behavior to be distinguished from loop quantum gravity (LQG) expectations. We present a full Monte Carlo simulation of the evaporation in LQG and statistical tests that discriminate between competing models. We conclude that contrarily to what was commonly thought, the discreteness of the area in LQG leads to characteristic features that qualify evaporatingblack holes as objects that could reveal quantum gravity footprints. PMID:22243065

Primordialblack holes (PBHs) with mass 10{sup 16}−10{sup 17} g almost escape constraints from observations so could essentially contribute to dark matter density. Hawking evaporation of such PBHs produces with a steady rate γ- and e{sup ±}-radiations in MeV energy range, which can be absorbed by ordinary matter. Simplified estimates show that a small fraction of evaporated energy had to be absorbed by baryonic matter what can turn out to be enough to heat the matter so it is fully ionized at the redshift z∼ 5... 10. The result is found to be close to a borderline case where the effect appears, what makes it sensitive to the approximation used. In our approximation, degree of gas ionization reaches 50-100% by z∼ 5 for PBH mass (3...7)× 10{sup 16} g with their abundance corresponding to the upper limit.

If gravity is a mixture of the ordinary attractive force carried by the massless graviton, and of a repulsive force carried by a particle with nonzero mass, an evaporatingblack hole might leave a stable remnant.

Quantum evaporation of Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger black holes is analyzed in the mean-field approximation, incorporating backreaction. Detailed analytical and numerical calculations show that, while some of the assumptions underlying the standard evaporation paradigm are borne out, several are not. Furthermore, if the black hole is initially macroscopic, the evaporation process exhibits remarkable universal properties (which are distinct from the features observed in the simplified, exactly soluble models). Finally, our results provide support for the full quantum gravity scenario recently developed by Ashtekar, Taveras, and Varadarajan. PMID:21599354

We construct a self-consistent model which describes a black hole from formation to evaporation including the backreaction from the Hawking radiation. In the case where a null shell collapses, at the beginning the evaporation occurs, but it stops eventually, and a horizon and singularity appear. On the other hand, in the generic collapse process of a continuously distributed null matter, the black hole evaporates completely without forming a macroscopically large horizon nor singularity. We also find a stationary solution in the heat bath, which can be regarded as a normal thermodynamic object.

We study the black hole evaporation and Hawking radiation for a noncommutative charged Vaidya black hole. For this purpose, we determine a spherically symmetric charged Vaidya model and then formulate a noncommutative Reissner-Nordström-like solution of this model, which leads to an exact ( t - r)-dependent metric. The behavior of the temporal component of this metric and the corresponding Hawking temperature are investigated. The results are shown in the form of graphs. Further, we examine the tunneling process of charged massive particles through the quantum horizon. We find that the tunneling amplitude is modified due to noncommutativity. Also, it turns out that the black hole evaporates completely in the limits of large time and horizon radius. The effect of charge is to reduce the temperature from a maximum value to zero. We note that the final stage of black hole evaporation is a naked singularity.

We study the black hole evaporation and Hawking radiation for a noncommutative charged Vaidya black hole. For this purpose, we determine a spherically symmetric charged Vaidya model and then formulate a noncommutative Reissner-Nordstroem-like solution of this model, which leads to an exact (t - r)-dependent metric. The behavior of the temporal component of this metric and the corresponding Hawking temperature are investigated. The results are shown in the form of graphs. Further, we examine the tunneling process of charged massive particles through the quantum horizon. We find that the tunneling amplitude is modified due to noncommutativity. Also, it turns out that the black hole evaporates completely in the limits of large time and horizon radius. The effect of charge is to reduce the temperature from a maximum value to zero. We note that the final stage of black hole evaporation is a naked singularity.

We investigate multidimensional universe with nonlinear scalar curvature terms to evaluate the probability of creation of primordialblack holes. For this we obtain Euclidean instanton solution in two different topologies: (a) S{sup D-1}--topology which does not accommodate primordialblack holes and (b) S{sup 1}xS{sup D-2}--topology which accommodates a pair of black holes. The probability for quantum creation of an inflationary universe with a pair of black holes has been evaluated assuming a gravitational action which is described by a polynomial function of scalar curvature with or without a cosmological constant ({lambda}) using the framework of semiclassical approximation of Hartle-Hawking boundary conditions. We discuss here a class of new gravitational instantons solution in the R{sup 4} theory which are relevant for cosmological model building.

We consider a model with a toroidally compactified extra dimension giving rise to a temperature-dependent 4D effective potential with one-loop contributions due to the Casimir effect, along with a 5D cosmological constant. The forms of the effective potential at low and high temperatures indicate a possibility for the formation of a domain wall bubble, formed by the modulus scalar field, surrounding an evaporatingblack hole. This is viewed as an example of a recently proposed black hole vacuum bubble arising from matter-sourced moduli fields in the vicinity of an evaporatingblack hole [D. Green, E. Silverstein, and D. Starr, Phys. Rev. D 74, 024004 (2006)]. The black hole bubble can be highly opaque to lower-energy particles and photons, and thereby entrap them within. For high-temperature black holes, there may also be a symmetry-breaking black hole bubble of false vacuum of the type previously conjectured by Moss [I. G. Moss, Phys. Rev. D 32, 1333 (1985)], tending to reflect low-energy particles from its wall. A double bubble composed of these two different types of bubble may form around the black hole, altering the hole's emission spectrum that reaches outside observers. Smaller mass black holes that have already evaporated away could have left vacuum bubbles behind that contribute to the dark matter.

Primordialblack holes offer insights into topics ranging from cosmological questions about inflationary models to astrophysical questions regarding supermassive black holes. Such insights depend on being able to predict the number density of black holes that form from primordial fluctuations. Traditionally this has been done by means of a ``rule-of-thumb'' developed by Carr in the 1980s, but recent numerical studies have shown that this predictor is a coarse tool at best. We present a two-parameter predictor with much more discrimination power that can be straightforwardly used to compute number densities. We also discuss challenges that face this type of prediction strategy, both analytically and numerically, and possible ways to circumvent them.

We use data from the second science run of the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors to search for the gravitational waves from primordialblack hole binary coalescence with component masses in the range 0.2-1.0M⊙. The analysis requires a signal to be found in the data from both LIGO observatories, according to a set of coincidence criteria. No inspiral signals were found. Assuming a spherical halo with core radius 5 kpc extending to 50 kpc containing nonspinning black holes with masses in the range 0.2-1.0M⊙, we place an observational upper limit on the rate of primordialblack hole coalescence of 63 per year per Milky Way halo (MWH) with 90% confidence.

The role played by ultrahigh frequencies of ultrashort distances in the usual derivations of the Hawking effect is discussed and criticized. The question would a blackhole radiate if there were a Planck scale cutoff in the rest frame of the hole '' is posed. Guidance is sought from Unruh's fluid-flow analogue of black-hole radiation, by taking into account the atomic nature of the fluid. Two arguments for black-hole radiation are given which assume a Planck length cutoff. One involves the response of static accelerated detectors outside the horizon, and the other involves conservation of the expectation value of the stress tensor. Neither argument is conclusive, but they do strongly suggest that, in spite of reasonable doubt about the usual derivations of black-hole radiation, a safe'' derivation which avoids our ignorance of ultrashort-distance physics can likely be formulated. Remaining open questions are discussed.

The fraction of the Universe going into primordialblack holes (PBHs) with initial mass M*≈5 ×1 014 g , such that they are evaporating at the present epoch, is strongly constrained by observations of both the extragalactic and Galactic γ -ray backgrounds. However, while the dominant contribution to the extragalactic background comes from the time-integrated emission of PBHs with initial mass M* , the Galactic background is dominated by the instantaneous emission of those with initial mass slightly larger than M* and current mass below M* . Also, the instantaneous emission of PBHs smaller than 0.4 M* mostly comprises secondary particles produced by the decay of directly emitted quark and gluon jets. These points were missed in the earlier analysis by Lehoucq et al. using EGRET data. For a monochromatic PBH mass function, with initial mass (1 +μ )M* and μ ≪1 , the current mass is (3 μ )1 /3M* , and the Galactic background constrains the fraction of the Universe going into PBHs as a function of μ . However, the initial mass function cannot be precisely monochromatic, and even a tiny spread of mass around M* would generate a current low-mass tail of PBHs below M* . This tail would be the main contributor to the Galactic background, so we consider its form and the associated constraints for a variety of scenarios with both extended and nearly monochromatic initial mass functions. In particular, we consider a scenario in which the PBHs form from critical collapse and have a mass function which peaks well above M* . In this case, the largest PBHs could provide the dark matter without the M* ones exceeding the γ -ray background limits.

The author makes a connection between the Kepler's laws of motion for planets in the gravitational field of the Sun with the motion of test particles in classical mechanics. Subsequently He discusses the quantum problem, or the motion of scalar particles described by Klein-Gordon equation in the gravitational field of a black hole, when the Particle's Energy is less than the Rest Energy of the Particle: E< mc^2. It is mentioned that the spectrum of energies will be discrete one as in the case of the Hydrogen atom. But, due to very fast decreasing of the Potential energy of the particle near the horizon of the Black Hole, or the Black Hole itself, the spectrum will be a quasidiscrete one. The imaginary part of the Energy describes the fall of the particle into Black Hole. There are two features, which could complicate the problem: 1) The rotation of the Black Hole 2) The spin of the Particles. The first circumstance will lead, as is shown by author, to superradiation (the Imaginary part of the Energy will change the sign) as in the case of Particles scattering (E>mc^2). As in that case detailed calculations show that the black Hole will drop the angular momentum very fast if the black Hole is highly rotating. Electrically charged particles cannot develop such a process due to very fast ionization of bosonic levels by electromagnetic radiation. Meanwhile, neutral particles produces Gamma-bursts of energies 67.5, 274.5, 932 Mev correspondingly. The duration of bursts is 1.26* 10^-17 s (for neutral pion), 2.99*10^-18 s (for Eta meson), 8.55*10^-19 s (for D^0 meson). The radiated energies are 1.2 * 10^35 erg, 8.67*10^34 erg, 8.55*10^33 erg, corresponding to very great powers of the order of magnitude 10^52 erg/s. The second circumstance does stops the superradiative decay due to Pauli exclussion principle. The imaginary part of the Energy will not change the sign, and the particles levels are decaying only. For this reason the superradiative bound levels decay of the

In the inflationary era black holes came into existence together with the universe through the quantum process of pair creation. The authors calculate the pair creation rate from the no boundary proposal for the wave function of the universe. The results are physically sensible and fit in with other descriptions of pair creation. The tunnelling proposal, on the other hand, predicts a catastrophic instability of de Sitter space to the nucleation of large black holes, and cannot be maintained.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) are the only remaining Dark Matter (DM) candidate of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. We present a new method of constraining up to 40% of the remaining mass range of the PBH DM using microlensing of stars targeted by NASA's Kepler mission. Kepler's exceptional photometric precision and finite-source effects allow for a higher microlensing rate than previously thought. We introduce a new formalism with these effects for the optical depth and microlensing rate.

Primordialblack holes (PBHs) are an important tool in cosmology to probe the primordial spectrum of small-scale curvature perturbations that reenter the cosmological horizon during radiation domination epoch. We numerically solve the evolution of spherically symmetric highly perturbed configurations to clarify the criteria of PBHs formation using an extremely wide class of curvature profiles characterized by five parameters, (in contrast to only two parameters used in all previous papers) which specify the curvature profiles not only at the central region but also at the outer boundary of configurations. It is shown that formation or non-formation of PBHs is determined essentialy by only two master parameters one of which can be presented as an integral of curvature over initial configurations and the other is presented in terms of the position of the boundary and the edge of the core.

The long time behaviour of an evaporatingblack hole presents a challenge to theoretical physics and touches relevant conceptual issues of quantum gravity, such as the information paradox. There are basically two strategies: top-down, i.e., constructing first a full quantum theory of gravity and discussing black hole evaporation as a particular application thereof, and bottom-up, i.e., sidestepping the difficulties inherent to the former approach by invoking `reasonable' ad hoc assumptions. Exploiting the fact that the Schwarzschild black hole can be described by means of an effective theory in 2D, a particular dilaton gravity model, the latter route is pursued. A crucial technical ingredient is Izawa's result on consistent deformations of 2D BF theory, while the most relevant physical assumption is boundedness of the asymptotic matter flux during the whole evaporation process. Together with making technical assumptions which can be relaxed, the dynamics of the evaporatingblack hole is described by means of consistent deformations of the underlying gauge symmetries with only one important deformation parameter. An attractor solution, the end-point of the evaporation process, is found. Its metric is flat. However, the behaviour of the dilaton field (which corresponds to the surface area) is non-trivial: it is argued that during the final flicker a first-order phase transition occurs from a linear to a constant dilaton vacuum. Consequently, a shock wave is emitted as a final `thunderbolt' with a total energy of a fraction of the Planck mass. Relations to ultrarelativistic boosts are pointed out. Another fraction of the Planck mass may reside in a cold remnant. The physical discussion addresses the lifetime, the specific heat, the Carter Penrose diagram, the information paradox and cosmological implications. The phenomenon of `dilaton evaporation' to a constant dilaton vacuum might be of relevance also for higher dimensional scalar tensor theories. Based on an

It is logically possible that regularly evaporatingblack holes (REBHs) exist in nature. In fact, the prevalent theoretical view is that these are indeed the real objects behind the curtain in astrophysical scenarios. There are several proposals for regularizing the classical singularity of black holes so that their formation and evaporation do not lead to information-loss problems. One characteristic is shared by most of these proposals: these REBHs present long-lived trapping horizons, with absolutely enormous evaporation lifetimes in whatever measure. Guided by the discomfort with these enormous and thus inaccessible lifetimes, we elaborate here on an alternative regularization of the classical singularity, previously proposed by the authors in an emergent gravity framework, which leads to a completely different scenario. In our scheme the collapse of a stellar object would result in a genuine time-symmetric bounce, which in geometrical terms amounts to the connection of a black-hole geometry with a white-hole geometry in a regular manner. The two most differential characteristics of this proposal are: (i) the complete bouncing geometry is a solution of standard classical general relativity everywhere except in a transient region that necessarily extends beyond the gravitational radius associated with the total mass of the collapsing object; and (ii) the duration of the bounce as seen by external observers is very brief (fractions of milliseconds for neutron-star-like collapses). This scenario motivates the search for new forms of stellar equilibrium different from black holes. In a brief epilogue we compare our proposal with a similar geometrical setting recently proposed by Haggard and Rovelli.

Bridging the gap between the approximately ten solar mass `stellar mass' black holes and the `supermassive' black holes of millions to billions of solar masses are the elusive `intermediate-mass' black holes. Their discovery is key to understanding whether supermassive black holes can grow from stellar-mass black holes or whether a more exotic process accelerated their growth soon after the Big Bang. Currently, tentative evidence suggests that the progenitors of supermassive black holes were formed as ~104-105Msolar black holes via the direct collapse of gas. Ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes at galaxy centres will help shed light on this formation mechanism.

Context: Primordialblack holes are unique probes of cosmology, general relativity, quantum gravity and non standard particle physics. They open a new window on the very small scales in the early Universe and also can be considered as the ultimate particle accelerator in their last (explosive) moments since they are supposed to reach, very briefly, the Planck temperature. Aims: Upper limits on the primordialblack hole number density of mass Mstar = 5×1014 g, the Hawking mass (born in the big-bang terminating their life presently), is determined comparing their predicted cumulative γ-ray emission, galaxy-wise, to the one observed by the EGRET satellite, once corrected for non thermal γ-ray background emission induced by cosmic ray protons and electrons interacting with light and matter in the Milky Way. Methods: A model with free gas emissivities is used to map the Galaxy in the 100 MeV photon range, where the peak of the primordialblack hole emission is expected. The best gas emissivities and additional model parameters are obtained by fitting the EGRET data and are used to derive the maximum emission of the primordialblack hole of the Hawking mass, assuming that they are distributed like the dark matter in the Galactic halo. Results: The bounds we obtain, depending on the dark matter distribution, extrapolated to the whole Universe (Ω_PBH(Mstar) = 2.4×10-10 to 2.6×10-9) are more stringent than the previous ones derived from extragalactic γ-ray background and antiprotons fluxes, though less model dependent and based on more robust data. Conclusions: These new limits have interesting consequences on the theory of the formation of small structures in the Universe, since they are the only constraint on very small scale density fluctuations left by inflation. Significant improvements by data gathered by the FERMI γ-ray satellite are expected in the near future. The interest of a generalisation of this work beyond the standard particle model and in

The formation of a significant number of black holes (PBHs) is realized if and only if primordial density fluctuations have a large amplitude, which means that tensor perturbations generated from these scalar perturbations as a second-order effect are also large and comparable to the observational data. We show that pulsar timing data essentially rule out PBHs with 10;{2}-10;{4}M_{middle dot in circle}, which were previously considered as a candidate of intermediate-mass black holes, and that PBHs with a mass range of 10;{20} to 10;{26} g, which serves as a candidate of dark matter, may be probed by future space-based laser interferometers and atomic interferometers. PMID:19518692

We propose a new scenario for the evolution of the binaries of primordialblack holes (PBH). We consider dynamical friction by ambient dark matter, scattering of dark matter particles with a highly eccentric orbit besides the standard two-body relaxation process to refill the loss cone, and interaction between the binary and a circumbinary disk, assuming that PBHs do not constitute the bulk of dark matter. Binary PBHs lose the energy and angular momentum by these processes, which could be sufficiently efficient for a typical configuration. Such a binary coalesces due to the gravitational wave emission on a time scale much shorter than the age of the universe. We estimate the density parameter of the resultant gravitational wave background. Astrophysical implications concerning the formation of intermediate-mass to supermassive black holes is also discussed.

We propose a new scenario for the evolution of the binaries of primordialblack holes (PBH). We consider dynamical friction by ambient dark matter, scattering of dark matter particles with a highly eccentric orbit besides the standard two-body relaxation process to refill the loss cone, and interaction between the binary and a circumbinary disk, assuming that PBHs do not constitute the bulk of dark matter. Binary PBHs lose the energy and angular momentum by these processes, which could be sufficiently efficient for a typical configuration. Such a binary coalesces due to the gravitational wave emission on a time scale much shorter than the age of the universe. We estimate the density parameter of the resultant gravitational wave background. Astrophysical implications concerning the formation of intermediate-mass to supermassive black holes is also discussed.

We studied the possibility whether the massive primordialblack holes (PBHs) surviving today can be produced in hybrid inflation. Though it is of great interest since such PBHs can be the candidate for dark matter or seeds of the supermassive black holes in galaxies, there have not been quantitatively complete works yet because of the non-perturbative behavior around the critical point of hybrid inflation. Therefore, combining the stochastic and δN formalism, we numerically calculated the curvature perturbations in a non-perturbative way and found, without any specific assumption of the types of hybrid inflation, PBHs are rather overproduced when the waterfall phase of hybrid inflation continues so long that the PBH scale is well enlarged and the corresponding PBH mass becomes sizable enough.

Bridging the gap between the approximately ten solar mass 'stellar mass' black holes and the 'supermassive' black holes of millions to billions of solar masses are the elusive 'intermediate-mass' black holes. Their discovery is key to understanding whether supermassive black holes can grow from stellar-mass black holes or whether a more exotic process accelerated their growth soon after the Big Bang. Currently, tentative evidence suggests that the progenitors of supermassive black holes were formed as ∼10(4)-10(5) M(⊙) black holes via the direct collapse of gas. Ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes at galaxy centres will help shed light on this formation mechanism. PMID:23250434

The process of black hole evaporation resulting from the Hawking effect has generated an intense controversy regarding its potential conflict with quantum mechanics' unitary evolution. A recent set of works by a collaboration involving one of us, have revised the controversy with the aims of, on one hand, clarifying some conceptual issues surrounding it, and, at the same time, arguing that collapse theories have the potential to offer a satisfactory resolution of the so-called paradox. Here we show an explicit calculation supporting this claim using a simplified model of black hole creation and evaporation, known as the CGHS model, together with a dynamical reduction theory, known as CSL, and some speculative, but seemingly natural ideas about the role of quantum gravity in connection with the would-be singularity. This work represents a specific realization of general ideas first discussed in Okon and Sudarsky (Found Phys 44:114-143, 2014 and a complete and detailed analysis of a model first considered in Modak et al. (Phys Rev D 91(12):124009, 2015.

A broad range of single field models of inflation are analyzed in light of all relevant recent cosmological data, checking whether they can lead to the formation of long-lived PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs). To that end we calculate the spectral index of the power spectrum of primordial perturbations as well as its first and second derivatives. PBH formation is possible only if the spectral index increases significantly at small scales, i.e. large wave number k. Since current data indicate that the first derivative α{sub S} of the spectral index n{sub S}(k{sub 0}) is negative at the pivot scale k{sub 0}, PBH formation is only possible in the presence of a sizable and positive second derivative (''running of the running'') β{sub S}. Among the three small-field and five large-field models we analyze, only one small-field model, the ''running mass'' model, allows PBH formation, for a narrow range of parameters. We also note that none of the models we analyze can accord for a large and negative value of α{sub S}, which is weakly preferred by current data.

The role played by ultrahigh frequencies or ultrashort distances in the usual derivation of the Hawking effect is discussed. We demonstrate the robustness of Hawking's prediction of black-hole evaporation, by carrying out an explicit calculation, in which short-distance physics is explicitly regularized using the Pauli-Villars regularization scheme. We find that short-distance effects due to physics at small distance scales, 1/Lambda gg 1/TH, where 1/Lambda is a covariantly chosen short-distance cutoff, can only contribute to the Hawking flux an amount that is exponentially suppressed by the large ratio Lambda/TH. We argue further that this behavior is not specific to our choice of regularization, but is a generic feature of any covariant short-distance regularization. We do so by showing that no possible covariant and local counterterm exists which can contribute to the Hawking flux at late times far from the hole.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) might have formed in the early Universe as a consequence of the collapse of density fluctuations with an amplitude above a critical value δc: the formation threshold. Although for a radiation-dominated Universe δc remains constant, if the Universe experiences some dust-like phases (e.g. phase transitions) δc might decrease, improving the chances of PBH formation. We studied the evolution of δc during the QCD phase transition epoch within three different models: Bag Model (BM), Lattice Fit Model (LFM), and Crossover Model (CM). We found that the reduction on the background value of δc can be as high as 77% (BM), which might imply a ˜10-10 probability of PBHs forming at the QCD epoch.

If the dark matter consists of primordialblack holes (PBHs), we show that gravitational lensing of stars being monitored by NASA's Kepler search for extrasolar planets can cause significant numbers of detectable microlensing events. A search through the roughly 150,000 light curves would result in large numbers of detectable events for PBHs in the mass range 5×10(-10) M(⊙) to 10(-4) M(⊙). Nondetection of these events would close almost 2 orders of magnitude of the mass window for PBH dark matter. The microlensing rate is higher than previously noticed due to a combination of the exceptional photometric precision of the Kepler mission and the increase in cross section due to the large angular sizes of the relatively nearby Kepler field stars. We also present a new formalism for calculating optical depth and microlensing rates in the presence of large finite-source effects. PMID:22182077

We point out that the gravitational-wave event GW150914 observed by the LIGO detectors can be explained by the coalescence of primordialblack holes (PBHs). It is found that the expected PBH merger rate would exceed the rate estimated by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration if PBHs were the dominant component of dark matter, while it can be made compatible if PBHs constitute a fraction of dark matter. Intriguingly, the abundance of PBHs required to explain the suggested lower bound on the event rate, >2 events Gpc-3 yr-1 , roughly coincides with the existing upper limit set by the nondetection of the cosmic microwave background spectral distortion. This implies that the proposed PBH scenario may be tested in the not-too-distant future.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) remain a viable Dark Matter (DM) candidate of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Previously, we have proposed a new method to constrain the remaining PBH DM mass range using microlensing of Kepler source stars, with the possibility of closing up to 40% of the remaining mass window. Here we re-address this analysis using a more accurate treatment of the distribution of the source stars, including limb-darkening as well as reflecting a more accurate number of variable stars. Including the extended Kepler mission the theoretically detectable PBH DM mass range could be extended down to 2*10^-10 solar masses. We address the possible PBH parameters that could be detected if such an event would be observed as well as possible improvements for future survey satellite missions.

We present new limits on the allowed masses of a dark matter (DM) halo consisting of primordialblack holes (PBH) (or any other massive compact halo object). We analyze two years of data from the Kepler satellite, searching for short-duration bumps caused by gravitational microlensing. After removing background events consisting of variable stars, flare events, and comets or asteroids moving through the Kepler field, we find no microlensing candidates. We measure the efficiency of our selection criteria by adding millions of simulated microlensing lensing events into the Kepler light curves. We find that PBH DM with masses in the range 2×10-9M⊙ to 10-7M⊙ cannot make up the entirety of the DM in the Milky Way. At the low-mass end, this decreases the allowed mass range by more than an order of magnititude.

If the dark matter consists of primordialblack holes (PBHs), we show that gravitational lensing of stars being monitored by NASA’s Kepler search for extrasolar planets can cause significant numbers of detectable microlensing events. A search through the roughly 150 000 light curves would result in large numbers of detectable events for PBHs in the mass range 5×10-10M⊙ to 10-4M⊙. Nondetection of these events would close almost 2 orders of magnitude of the mass window for PBH dark matter. The microlensing rate is higher than previously noticed due to a combination of the exceptional photometric precision of the Kepler mission and the increase in cross section due to the large angular sizes of the relatively nearby Kepler field stars. We also present a new formalism for calculating optical depth and microlensing rates in the presence of large finite-source effects.

We present new limits on the allowed masses of a dark matter (DM) halo consisting of primordialblack holes (PBH) (or any other massive compact halo object). We analyze two years of data from the Kepler satellite, searching for short-duration bumps caused by gravitational microlensing. After removing background events consisting of variable stars, flare events, and comets or asteroids moving through the Kepler field, we find no microlensing candidates. We measure the efficiency of our selection criteria by adding millions of simulated microlensing lensing events into the Kepler light curves. We find that PBH DM with masses in the range 2 × 10(-9) M[Symbol: see text] to 10(-7)M[Symbol: see text] cannot make up the entirety of the DM in the Milky Way. At the low-mass end, this decreases the allowed mass range by more than an order of magnititude. PMID:24237504

We point out that the gravitational-wave event GW150914 observed by the LIGO detectors can be explained by the coalescence of primordialblack holes (PBHs). It is found that the expected PBH merger rate would exceed the rate estimated by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration if PBHs were the dominant component of dark matter, while it can be made compatible if PBHs constitute a fraction of dark matter. Intriguingly, the abundance of PBHs required to explain the suggested lower bound on the event rate, >2 events Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}, roughly coincides with the existing upper limit set by the nondetection of the cosmic microwave background spectral distortion. This implies that the proposed PBH scenario may be tested in the not-too-distant future. PMID:27541453

We consider the imprint of super-radiant instabilities of nonevaporating primordialblack holes (PBHs) on the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In the radiation-dominated era, PBHs are surrounded by a roughly homogeneous cosmic plasma which endows photons with an effective mass through the plasma frequency. In this setting, spinning PBHs are unstable to a spontaneous spindown through the well-known “black hole bomb” mechanism. At the linear level, the photon density is trapped by the effective photon mass and grows exponentially in time due to super-radiance. As the plasma density declines due to cosmic expansion, the associated energy around PBHs is released and dissipated in the CMB. We evaluate the resulting spectral distortions of the CMB in the redshift range 103≲z≲2×106. Using the existing COBE/FIRAS bounds on CMB spectral distortions, we derive upper limits on the fraction of dark matter that can be associated with spinning PBHs in the mass range 10-8M⊙≲M≲0.2M⊙. For maximally spinning PBHs, our limits are much tighter than those derived from microlensing or other methods. Future data from the proposed PIXIE mission could improve our limits by several orders of magnitude.

In this paper we present a new scenario where massive primordialblack holes (PBHs) are produced from the collapse of large curvature perturbations generated during a mild-waterfall phase of hybrid inflation. We determine the values of the inflaton potential parameters leading to a PBH mass spectrum peaking on planetarylike masses at matter-radiation equality and producing abundances comparable to those of dark matter today, while the matter power spectrum on scales probed by cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies agrees with Planck data. These PBHs could have acquired large stellar masses today, via merging, and the model passes both the constraints from CMB distortions and microlensing. This scenario is supported by Chandra observations of numerous BH candidates in the central region of Andromeda. Moreover, the tail of the PBH mass distribution could be responsible for the seeds of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, as well as for ultraluminous x-ray sources. We find that our effective hybrid potential can originate e.g. from D-term inflation with a Fayet-Iliopoulos term of the order of the Planck scale but sub-Planckian values of the inflaton field. Finally, we discuss the implications of quantum diffusion at the instability point of the potential, able to generate a Swiss-cheese-like structure of the Universe, eventually leading to apparent accelerated cosmic expansion.

In a close encounter with a neutron star, a primordialblack hole can get gravitationally captured by depositing a considerable amount of energy into nonradial stellar modes of very high angular number l. If the neutron-star equation of state is sufficiently stiff, we show that the total energy loss in the point-particle approximation is formally divergent. Various mechanisms — including viscosity, finite-size effects and the elasticity of the crust — can damp high-l modes and regularize the total energy loss. Within a short time, the black hole is trapped inside the star and disrupts it by rapid accretion. Estimating these effects, we predict that the existence of old neutron stars in regions where the dark-matter density ρ{sub DM}∼>10{sup 2}(σ/km s{sup −1}) GeV cm{sup −3} (where σ is the dark-matter velocity dispersion) limits the abundance of primordialblack holes in the mass range 10{sup 17} g∼primordial black holes cannot be the dominant dark matter constituent.

We present our analysis on new limits of the dark matter (DM) halo consisting of primordialblack holes (PBHs) or massive compact halo objects. We present a search of the first two yr of publicly available Kepler mission data for potential signatures of gravitational microlensing caused by these objects as well as an extensive analysis of the astrophysical sources of background error. These include variable stars, flare events, and comets or asteroids that are moving through the Kepler field. We discuss the potential of detecting comets using the Kepler light curves, presenting measurements of two known comets and one unidentified object, most likely an asteroid or comet. After removing the background events with statistical cuts, we find no microlensing candidates. We therefore present our Monte Carlo efficiency calculation in order to constrain the PBH DM with masses in the range of 2 × 10{sup –9} M {sub ☉} to 10{sup –7} M {sub ☉}. We find that PBHs in this mass range cannot make up the entirety of the DM, thus closing a full order of magnitude in the allowed mass range for PBH DM.

We present our analysis on new limits of the dark matter (DM) halo consisting of primordialblack holes (PBHs) or massive compact halo objects. We present a search of the first two yr of publicly available Kepler mission data for potential signatures of gravitational microlensing caused by these objects as well as an extensive analysis of the astrophysical sources of background error. These include variable stars, flare events, and comets or asteroids that are moving through the Kepler field. We discuss the potential of detecting comets using the Kepler light curves, presenting measurements of two known comets and one unidentified object, most likely an asteroid or comet. After removing the background events with statistical cuts, we find no microlensing candidates. We therefore present our Monte Carlo efficiency calculation in order to constrain the PBH DM with masses in the range of 2 × 10-9 M ⊙ to 10-7 M ⊙. We find that PBHs in this mass range cannot make up the entirety of the DM, thus closing a full order of magnitude in the allowed mass range for PBH DM.

Primordialblack holes (PBHs) remain a dark matter (DM) candidate of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Previously, we proposed a new method of constraining the remaining PBH DM mass range using microlensing of stars monitored by NASA's Kepler mission. We improve this analysis using a more accurate treatment of the population of the Kepler source stars, their variability, and limb darkening. We extend the theoretically detectable PBH DM mass range down to 2 × 10-10 M ⊙, two orders of magnitude below current limits and one-third order of magnitude below our previous estimate. We address how to extract the DM properties, such as mass and spatial distribution, if PBH microlensing events were detected. We correct an error in a well-known finite-source limb-darkening microlensing formula and also examine the effects of varying the light curve cadence on PBH DM detectability. We also introduce an approximation for estimating the predicted rate of detection per star as a function of the star's properties, thus allowing for selection of source stars in future missions, and extend our analysis to planned surveys, such as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope.

LIGO's discovery of a gravitational wave from two merging black holes (BHs) of similar masses rekindled suggestions that primordial BHs (PBHs) make up the dark matter (DM). If so, PBHs would add a Poissonian isocurvature density fluctuation component to the inflation-produced adiabatic density fluctuations. For LIGO's BH parameters, this extra component would dominate the small-scale power responsible for collapse of early DM halos at z ≳ 10, where first luminous sources formed. We quantify the resultant increase in high-z abundances of collapsed halos that are suitable for producing the first generation of stars and luminous sources. The significantly increased abundance of the early halos would naturally explain the observed source-subtracted near-IR cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations, which cannot be accounted for by known galaxy populations. For LIGO's BH parameters, this increase is such that the observed CIB fluctuation levels at 2–5 μm can be produced if only a tiny fraction of baryons in the collapsed DM halos forms luminous sources. Gas accretion onto these PBHs in collapsed halos, where first stars should also form, would straightforwardly account for the observed high coherence between the CIB and unresolved cosmic X-ray background in soft X-rays. We discuss modifications possibly required in the processes of first star formation if LIGO-type BHs indeed make up the bulk or all of DM. The arguments are valid only if the PBHs make up all, or at least most, of DM, but at the same time the mechanism appears inevitable if DM is made of PBHs.

Galaxies observed today are likely to have evolved from density perturbations in the early universe. Perturbations that exceeded some critical threshold are conjectured to have undergone gravitational collapse to form primordialblack holes (PBHs) at a range of masses. Such PBHs serve as candidates for cold dark matter, and their detection would shed light on conditions in the early universe. Here, we propose a mechanism to search for transits of PBHs through/nearby Earth by studying the associated seismic waves. Using a spectral-element method, we simulate and visualize this seismic wave field in Earth's interior. We predict the emergence of two unique signatures, namely, a wave that would arrive almost simultaneously everywhere on Earth's free surface and the excitation of unusual spheroidal modes with a characteristic frequency spacing in free oscillation spectra. These qualitative characteristics are unaffected by the speed or proximity of the PBH trajectory. The seismic energy deposited by a proximal M{sup PBH} = 10{sup 15} g PBH is comparable to a magnitude M{sub w} = 4 earthquake. The non-seismic collateral damage due to the actual impact of such small PBHs with Earth would be negligible. Unfortunately, the expected collision rate is very low even if PBHs constituted all of dark matter, at {approx}10{sup -7} yr{sup -1}, and since the rate scales as 1/M{sup PBH}, fortunately encounters with larger, Earth-threatening PBHs are exceedingly unlikely. However, the rate at which non-colliding close encounters of PBHs could be detected by seismic activity alone is roughly two orders of magnitude larger-that is once every hundred thousand years-than the direct collision rate.

We discuss some of the issues relating to information loss and black hole thermodynamics in the light of recent work on local black hole horizons. Understood in terms of pure states evolving into mixed states, the possibility of information loss in black holes is closely related to the global causal structure of space-time, as is the existence of event horizons. However, black holes need not be defined by event horizons, and in fact we argue that in order to have a fully unitary evolution for black holes, they should be defined in terms of something else, such as a trapping horizon. The Misner-Sharp mass in spherical symmetry shows very simply how trapping horizons can give rise to black hole thermodynamics, Hawking radiation and singularities. We show how the Misner-Sharp mass can also be used to give insights into the process of collapse and evaporation of locally defined black holes.

Almheiri et al. have emphasized that otherwise reasonable beliefs about black hole evaporation are incompatible with the monogamy of quantum entanglement, a general property of quantum mechanics. We investigate the final-state projection model of black hole evaporation proposed by Horowitz and Maldacena, pointing out that this model admits cloning of quantum states and polygamous entanglement, allowing unitarity of the evaporation process to be reconciled with smoothness of the black hole event horizon. Though the model seems to require carefully tuned dynamics to ensure exact unitarity of the black hole S-matrix, for a generic final-state boundary condition the deviations from unitarity are exponentially small in the black hole entropy; furthermore observers inside black holes need not detect any deviations from standard quantum mechanics. Though measurements performed inside old black holes could potentially produce causality-violating phenomena, the computational complexity of decoding the Hawking radiation may render the causality violation unobservable. Final-state projection models illustrate how inviolable principles of standard quantum mechanics might be circumvented in a theory of quantum gravity.

It was recently pointed out that if an absorbing boundary condition is imposed at infinity, an asymptotically anti-de Sitter Schwarzschild black hole with a spherical horizon takes only a finite amount of time to evaporate away even if its initial mass is arbitrarily large. We show that this is a rather generic property in AdS spacetimes: regardless of their horizon topologies, neutral AdS black holes in general relativity take about the same amount of time to evaporate down to the same size of order L, the AdS length scale. Our discussion focuses on the case in which the black hole has toral event horizon. A brief comment is made on the hyperbolic case, i.e. for black holes with negatively curved horizons.

This paper reports that, both the location and the temperature of event horizons of evaporatingblack holes can be easily given if one proposes the Klein-Gordon equation approaches the standard form of wave equation near event horizons by using tortoise-type coordinates.

The formation of near-extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes in the S-wave approximation can be described, near the event horizon, by an effective solvable model. The corresponding one-loop quantum theory remains solvable and allows one to follow analytically the evaporation process, which is shown to require an infinite amount of time. PMID:10978075

Large-angular-scale anisotropies in the 3 K primordialblack-body radiation were detected and mapped with a sensitivity of 2 x to the minus 4 power K and an angular resolution of about 10 deg. The motion of the Earth with respect to the distant matter of the Universe ("Aether Drift") was measured and the homogeneity and isotropy of the Universe (the "Cosmological Principle") was probed. The experiment uses two Dicke radiometers, one at 33 GHz to detect the cosmic anisotropy, and one at 54 GHz to detect anisotropies in the residual oxygen above the detectors. The system was installed in the NASA-Ames Earth survey aircraft (U-2), and operated successfully in a series of flights in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Data taking and analysis to measure the anisotropy were successful.

This experiment detected and mapped large-angular-scale anisotropies in the 3 K primordialblack-body radiation with a sensitivity of 2x.0001k and an angular resolution of about 10 degs. It measured the motion of the Earth with respect to the distant matter of the Universe (Aether Drift), and probed the homogeneity and isotropy of the Universe (the Cosmological Principle). The experiment used two Dicke radiometers, one at 33 GHz to detect the cosmic anisotropy, and one at 54 GHz to detect anisotropies in the residual oxygen above the detectors. The system was installed in the NASA-Ames Earth Survey Aircraft (U-2), and operated successfully in a series of flights.

A Penrose diagram is constructed for an example black hole that evaporates at a steady rate as measured by a distant observer, until the mass vanishes, yielding a final state Minkowski space-time. Coordinate dependencies of significant features, such as the horizon and coordinate anomalies, are clearly demonstrated on the diagram. The large-scale causal structure of the space-time is briefly discussed.

We compute the probability for quantum creation of an inflationary universe with and without a pair of black holes in a modified gravity. The action of the modified theory of gravity contains {alpha}R{sup 2} and {delta}R{sup -1} terms in addition to a cosmological constant ({lambda}) in the Einstein-Hilbert action. The probabilities for the creation of universe with a pair of black holes have been evaluated considering two different kinds of spatial sections, one which accommodates a pair of black holes and the other without black hole. We adopt a technique prescribed by Bousso and Hawking to calculate the above creation probability in a semiclassical approximation using the Hartle-Hawking boundary condition. We note a class of new and physically interesting instanton solutions characterized by the parameters in the action. These instantons may play an important role in the creation of the early universe. We also note that the probability of creation of a universe with a pair of black holes is strongly suppressed with a positive cosmological constant when {delta}=(4{lambda}{sup 2}/3) for {alpha}>0 but it is more probable for {alpha}

Using Parikh-Wilczek tunneling framework, we calculate the tunneling rate from a Schwarzschild black hole under the third order WKB approximation, and then obtain the expressions for emission spectrum and black hole entropy to the third order correction. The entropy contains four terms including the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, the logarithmic term, the inverse area term, and the square of inverse area term. In addition, we analyse the correlation between sequential emissions under this approximation. It is shown that the entropy is conserved during the process of black hole evaporation, which consists with the request of quantum mechanics and implies the information is conserved during this process. We also compare the above result with that of pure thermal spectrum case, and find that the non-thermal correction played an important role.

The formation of quasar black holes during the hydrodynamic collapse of protogalactic gas clouds is discussed. The dissipational collapse and long-term dynamical evolution of these systems is analyzed using three-dimensional numerical simulations. The calculations focus on the final collapse stages of the inner baryonic component and therefore ignore the presence of dark matter. Two types of initial conditions are considered: uniformly rotating spherical clouds, and iirotational ellipsoidal clouds. In both cases the clouds are initially cold, homogeneous, and not far from rotational support (T/(absolute value of W) approximately equals 0.1). Although the details of the dynamical evolution depend sensitively on the initial conditions, the qualitative features of the final configurations do not. Most of the gas is found to fragment into small dense clumps, that eventually make up a spheroidal component resembling a galactic bulge. About 5% of the initial mass remains in the form of a smooth disk of gas supported by rotation in the gravitational potential potential well of the outer spheroid. If a central seed black hole of mass approximately greater than 10(exp 6) solar mass forms, it can grow by steady accretion from the disk and reach a typical quasar black hole mass approximately 10(exp 8) solar mass in less than 5 x 10(exp 8) yr. In the absence of a sufficiently massive seed, dynamical instabilities in a strongly self-gravitating inner region of the disk will inhibit steady accretion of gas and may prevent the immediate formation of quasar.

The probability for quantum creation of an inflationary universe with a pair of black holes in 1/R-gravitational theory has been studied. Considering a gravitational action which includes a cosmological constant ({lambda}) in addition to {delta}R{sup -1} term, the probability has been evaluated in a semiclassical approximation with Hartle-Hawking boundary condition. We obtain instanton solutions determined by the parameters {delta} and {lambda} satisfying the constraint {delta}{<=}(4{lambda}{sup 2}/3). However, we note that two different classes of instanton solutions exists in the region 0black holes is strongly suppressed with a positive cosmological constant except in one case when 0black holes is less probable.

We investigate cosmic-ray antiprotons emitted from the galactic primordialblack holes (PBHs) in the Randall-Sundrum type-2 braneworld. The recent results of the Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) antiproton observation imply the existence of exotic primary sub-GeV antiprotons, one of whose most probable origin is PBHs in our Galaxy. We show that the magnitude of antiproton flux from PBHs in the Randall-Sundrum braneworld is proportional to negative power of the anti-de Sitter radius and immediately find that a large extra dimension can relax upper limits on the abundance of the galactic PBHs. If actually there are more PBHs than the known upper limit obtained in the pure 4D case, they set a lower bound on the size of the extra dimension above at least 10{sup 20} times 4D Planck length to avoid inconsistency. On completion of the numerical studies, we show that these constraints on the AdS radius are comparable to those obtained from the diffuse photon background by some of the authors in the previous paper. Moreover, in the low accretion rate case, only antiprotons can constrain the braneworld. We show that we will detect signatures of the braneworld as a difference between the flux of the antiprotons predicted in 4D and 5D by future observations in sub-GeV region with a few percent precision.

PrimordialBlack Holes (PBHs) remain one of the few Dark Matter (DM) candidates left within the Standard Model of Particle Physics. We have previously found that previous PBH DM limits could theoretically be extended by two orders of magnitude by using the microlensing of the source stars monitored by the Kepler satellite due to its photometric precision and the large projected cross section of the nearby stars. Here we present the experimental results of our study of the first two years of Kepler stellar lightcurves. After eliminating background events such as variable stars, flares, and comets, we have found no microlensing events. We were therefore able to calculate our efficiency of detection by introducing millions of fake microlensing events which included limb-darkening and a corrected finite-source microlensing formalism. By performing this Monte Carlo analysis, we have found that PBHs with masses between 2 × 10-9 M⊙ and 10-7 M⊙ cannot constitute the entirety of the DM, thereby constraining a full order of magnitude of the previously allowed PBH DM mass range.

We obtain renormalized stress tensor of a mass-less, charge-less dynamical quantum scalar field, minimally coupled with a spherically symmetric static Lukewarm black hole. In two dimensional analog the minimal coupling reduces to the conformal coupling and the stress tensor is found to be determined by the nonlocal contribution of the anomalous trace and some additional parameters in close relation to the work presented by Christensen and Fulling. Lukewarm black holes are a special class of Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter space times where its electric charge is equal to its mass. Having the obtained renormalized stress tensor we attempt to obtain a time-independent solution of the well known metric back reaction equation. Mathematical derivations predict that the final state of an evaporating quantum Lukewarm black hole reduces to a remnant stable mini black hole with moved locations of the horizons. Namely the perturbed black hole (cosmological) horizon is compressed (extended) to scales which is smaller (larger) than the corresponding classical radius of the event horizons. Hence there is not obtained an deviation on the cosmic sensor-ship hypothesis.

We analyze Hawking evaporation of the Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger black holes from a quantum geometry perspective and show that information is not lost, primarily because the quantum space-time is sufficiently larger than the classical. Using suitable approximations to extract physics from quantum space-times we establish that (i) the future null infinity of the quantum space-time is sufficiently long for the past vacuum to evolve to a pure state in the future, (ii) this state has a finite norm in the future Fock space, and (iii) all the information comes out at future infinity; there are no remnants. PMID:18518597

Data taken with the CYGNUS detector between 1989 and 1993 have been used to search for 1 second bursts of ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma rays from any point in the northern sky. There is no evidence for such bursts. Therefore the theory-dependent upper limit on the rate-density of evaporatingblack holes is 6.1 {times} 10{sup 5}pc{sup {minus}3}yr{sup {minus}1} at the 99% C.L.. After renormalizing previous direct searches to the same theory, this limit is the most restrictive by more than 2 orders of magnitude.

Data taken with the CYGNUS detector between 1989 and 1993 have been used to search for 1 second bursts of ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma rays from any point in the northern sky. There is no evidence for such bursts. Therefore the theory-dependent upper limit on the rate-density of evaporatingblack holes is 6.1 [times] 10[sup 5]pc[sup [minus]3]yr[sup [minus]1] at the 99% C.L.. After renormalizing previous direct searches to the same theory, this limit is the most restrictive by more than 2 orders of magnitude.

Callan, Giddings, Harvey, and Strominger (CGHS) previously introduced a two-dimensional semiclassical model of gravity coupled to a dilaton and to matter fields. Their model yields a system of field equations which may describe the formation of a black hole in gravitational collapse as well as its subsequent evaporation. Here we present an approximate analytical solution to the semiclassical CGHS field equations. This solution is constructed using the recently introduced formalism of flux-conserving hyperbolic systems. We also explore the asymptotic behavior at the horizon of the evaporatingblack hole.

We consider a novel approach to address the black hole information paradox. The idea is based on adapting, to the situation at hand, the modified versions of quantum theory involving spontaneous stochastic dynamical collapse of quantum states, which have been considered in attempts to deal with shortcomings of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular, the issue known as "the measurement problem." The new basic hypothesis is that the modified quantum behavior is enhanced in the region of high curvature so that the information encoded in the initial quantum state of the matter fields is rapidly erased as the black hole singularity is approached. We show that in this manner the complete evaporation of the black hole via Hawking radiation can be understood as involving no paradox. Calculations are performed using a modified version of quantum theory known as "continuous spontaneous localization" (CSL), which was originally developed in the context of many-particle nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. We use a version of CSL tailored to quantum field theory and applied in the context of the two -dimensional Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger model. Although the role of quantum gravity in this picture is restricted to the resolution of the singularity, related studies suggest that there might be further connections.

We consider the evolution of primordialblack holes formed during the high energy phase of the braneworld scenario. We show that the effect of accretion from the surrounding radiation bath is dominant compared to evaporation for such black holes. This feature lasts till the onset of matter (or black hole) domination of the total energy density which could occur either in the high energy phase or later. We find that the black hole evaporation times could be significantly large even for black holes with small initial mass to survive until several cosmologically interesting eras. PMID:12570481

We examine the basic assumptions in the original setup of the firewall paradox. The main claim is that a single mode of the lathe radiation is maximally entangled with the mode inside the horizon and simultaneously with the modes of early Hawking radiation. We argue that this situation never happens during the evolution of a black hole. Quantum mechanics tells us that while the black hole exists, unitary evolution maximally entangles a late mode located just outside the horizon with a combination of early radiation and black hole states, instead of either of them separately. One of the reasons for this is that the black hole radiation is not random and strongly depends on the geometry and charge of the black hole, as detailed numerical calculations of Hawking evaporation clearly show. As a consequence, one can not factor out the state of the black hole. However, this extended entanglement between the black hole and modes of early and late radiation indicates that, as the black hole ages, the local Rindler horizon is modified out to macroscopic distances from the black hole. Fundamentally non-local physics nor firewalls are not necessary to explain this result. We propose an infrared mechanism called icezone that is mediated by low energy interacting modes and acts near any event horizon to entangle states separated by long distances. These interactions at first provide small corrections to the thermal Hawking radiation. At the end of evaporation however the effect of interactions is as large as the Hawking radiation and information is recovered for an outside observer. We verify this in an explicit construction and calculation of the density matrix of a spin model.

We present an analytical formulation of the recent one-shot decoupling model of Bràdler and Adami (2015 arXiv:1505.0284) and compute the resulting 'Page information' curves, for the reduced density matrices for the evaporatingblack hole (BH) internal degrees of freedom, and emitted Hawking radiation pairs entangled across the horizon. We argue that BH evaporation/particle production has a very close analogy to the laboratory process of spontaneous parametric down conversion, when the pump is allowed to deplete.

In 1976 S. Hawking claimed that “Because part of the information about the state of the system is lost down the hole, the final situation is represented by a density matrix rather than a pure quantum state”. This was the starting point of the popular “black hole (BH) information paradox”. In a series of papers, together with collaborators, we naturally interpreted BH quasi-normal modes (QNMs) in terms of quantum levels discussing a model of excited BH somewhat similar to the historical semi-classical Bohr model of the structure of a hydrogen atom. Here we explicitly write down, for the same model, a time dependent Schrödinger equation for the system composed by Hawking radiation and BH QNMs. The physical state and the correspondent wave function are written in terms of a unitary evolution matrix instead of a density matrix. Thus, the final state results to be a pure quantum state instead of a mixed one. Hence, Hawking’s claim is falsified because BHs result to be well defined quantum mechanical systems, having ordered, discrete quantum spectra, which respect ’t Hooft’s assumption that Schrödinger equations can be used universally for all dynamics in the universe. As a consequence, information comes out in BH evaporation in terms of pure states in a unitary time dependent evolution. In Section 4 of this paper we show that the present approach permits also to solve the entanglement problem connected with the information paradox.

Large-angular-scale anisotropies in the 3 K primordialblack-body radiation were detected and mapped with a sensitivity of 2 x to the minus 4 power K and an angular resolution of about 10 deg. The motion of the Earth with respect to the distant matter of the Universe ( Aether Drift ) was measured and the homogeneity and isotropy of the Universe (the Cosmological Principle ) was probed. The experiment uses two Dicke radiometers, one at 33 GHz to detect the cosmic anisotropy, and one at 54 GHz to detect anisotropies in the residual oxygen above the detectors. The system was installed in the NASA-Ames Earth survey aircraft (U-2), and operated successfully in a series of flights in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Data taking and analysis to measure the anisotropy were successful.

Primordial nucleosynthesis, or Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), is one of the three evidences for the Big-Bang model, together with the expansion of the Universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background. There is a good global agreement over a range of nine orders of magnitude between abundances of 4He, D, 3He and 7Li deduced from observations, and calculated in primordial nucleosynthesis. This comparison was used to determine the baryonic density of the Universe. For this purpose, it is now superseded by the analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation anisotropies. However, there remain, a yet unexplained, discrepancy of a factor ≈3, between the calculated and observed lithium primordial abundances, that has not been reduced, neither by recent nuclear physics experiments, nor by new observations. Big-Bang nucleosynthesis, that has been used, to first constrain the baryonic density, and the number of neutrino families, remains, a valuable tool to probe the physics of the early Universe.

Efficient solar evaporation plays an indispensable role in nature as well as the industry process. However, the traditional evaporation process depends on the total temperature increase of bulk water. Recently, localized heating at the air-water interface has been demonstrated as a potential strategy for the improvement of solar evaporation. Here, we show that the carbon-black-based superhydrophobic gauze was able to float on the surface of water and selectively heat the surface water under irradiation, resulting in an enhanced evaporation rate. The fabrication process of the superhydrophobic black gauze was low-cost, scalable, and easy-to-prepare. Control experiments were conducted under different light intensities, and the results proved that the floating black gauze achieved an evaporation rate 2-3 times higher than that of the traditional process. A higher temperature of the surface water was observed in the floating gauze group, revealing a main reason for the evaporation enhancement. Furthermore, the self-cleaning ability of the superhydrophobic black gauze enabled a convenient recycling and reusing process toward practical application. The present material may open a new avenue for application of the superhydrophobic substrate and meet extensive requirements in the fields related to solar evaporation. PMID:26027770

With the advent of the new extragalactic deuterium observations, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is on the verge of undergoing a transformation. In the past, the emphasis has been on demonstrating the concordance of the BBN model with the abundances of the light isotopes extrapolated back to their primordial values by using stellar and galactic evolution theories. As a direct measure of primordial deuterium is converged upon, the nature of the field will shift to using the much more precise primordial D/H to constrain the more flexible stellar and galactic evolution models (although the question of potential systematic error in 4He abundance determinations remains open). The remarkable success of the theory to date in establishing the concordance has led to the very robust conclusion of BBN regarding the baryon density. This robustness remains even through major model variations such as an assumed first-order quark-hadron phase transition. The BBN constraints on the cosmological baryon density are reviewed and demonstrate that the bulk of the baryons are dark and also that the bulk of the matter in the universe is nonbaryonic. Comparison of baryonic density arguments from Lyman-alpha clouds, x-ray gas in clusters, and the microwave anisotropy are made. PMID:9419322

With the advent of the new extragalactic deuterium observations, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is on the verge of undergoing a transformation. In the past, the emphasis has been on demonstrating the concordance of the BBN model with the abundances of the light isotopes extrapolated back to their primordial values by using stellar and galactic evolution theories. As a direct measure of primordial deuterium is converged upon, the nature of the field will shift to using the much more precise primordial D/H to constrain the more flexible stellar and galactic evolution models (although the question of potential systematic error in 4He abundance determinations remains open). The remarkable success of the theory to date in establishing the concordance has led to the very robust conclusion of BBN regarding the baryon density. This robustness remains even through major model variations such as an assumed first-order quark-hadron phase transition. The BBN constraints on the cosmological baryon density are reviewed and demonstrate that the bulk of the baryons are dark and also that the bulk of the matter in the universe is nonbaryonic. Comparison of baryonic density arguments from Lyman-α clouds, x-ray gas in clusters, and the microwave anisotropy are made. PMID:9419322

In this note, we begin by presenting an argument suggesting that large AdS black holes dual to typical high-energy pure states of a single holographic CFT must have some structure at the horizon, i.e. a fuzzball/firewall, unless the procedure to probe physics behind the horizon is state-dependent. By weakly coupling the CFT to an auxiliary system, such a black hole can be made to evaporate. In a case where the auxiliary system is a second identical CFT, it is possible (for specific initial states) that the system evolves to precisely the thermofield double state as the original black hole evaporates. In this case, the dual geometry should include the "late-time" part of the eternal AdS black hole spacetime which includes smooth spacetime behind the horizon of the original black hole. Thus, if a firewall is present initially, it evaporates. This provides a specific realization of the recent ideas of Maldacena and Susskind that the existence of smooth spacetime behind the horizon of an evaporatingblack hole can be enabled by maximal entanglement with a Hawking radiation system (in our case the second CFT) rather than prevented by it. For initial states which are not finely-tuned to produce the thermofield double state, the question of whether a late-time infalling observer experiences a firewall translates to a question about the gravity dual of a typical high-energy state of a two-CFT system.

We consider a new mass scale MT = (ℏ2Λ/G)1/3 constructed from dimensional analysis by using G, ℏ and Λ and discuss its physical interpretation. Based on the Generalized Uncertainty Relation, a black hole with age comparable to the universe would stop radiating when the mass reaches a new mass scale MT‧ = c(ℏ/G2Λ)1/3 at which its temperature corresponds to the mass MT. Black hole remnants could have masses ranging from a Planck mass to a trillion kilograms. Holography persists even when the uncertainty relation is modified to the Minimum Length Uncertainty Relation (MLUR). The remnant black hole entropy is proportional to the surface area of the black hole in unit of the Planck area in arbitrary noncompact dimensions.

Corollaries of gravity models with second-order curvature corrections in the form of a Gauss-Bonnet term and possibilities (or impossibilities) for their experimental search or observations are discussed. The full version of the four-dimensional Schwarzschild-Gauss-Bonnet black hole solution and the constraint on the possible minimal black hole mass following from this model are considered. Using our solution as a model for the final stages of Hawking evaporation of black holes with a low initial mass (up to 10{sup 15} g) whose lifetime is comparable to that of our Universe, we have revealed differences in the patterns of evaporation: we have obtained high values of the emitted energy and showed the impossibility of an experimental search for primordialblack holes by their evaporation products. Scenarios for the evaporation of Gauss-Bonnet black holes in multidimensional gravity models and possibilities for their experimental search are also discussed.

One-shot decoupling is a powerful primitive in quantum information theory and was hypothesized to play a role in the black hole information paradox. We study black hole dynamics modeled by a trilinear Hamiltonian whose semiclassical limit gives rise to Hawking radiation. An explicit numerical calculation of the discretized path integral of the S matrix shows that decoupling is exact in the continuous limit, implying that quantum information is perfectly transferred from the black hole to radiation. A striking consequence of decoupling is the emergence of an output radiation entropy profile that follows Page's prediction. We argue that information transfer and the emergence of Page curves is a robust feature of any multilinear interaction Hamiltonian with a bounded spectrum. PMID:27015471

One-shot decoupling is a powerful primitive in quantum information theory and was hypothesized to play a role in the black hole information paradox. We study black hole dynamics modeled by a trilinear Hamiltonian whose semiclassical limit gives rise to Hawking radiation. An explicit numerical calculation of the discretized path integral of the S matrix shows that decoupling is exact in the continuous limit, implying that quantum information is perfectly transferred from the black hole to radiation. A striking consequence of decoupling is the emergence of an output radiation entropy profile that follows Page's prediction. We argue that information transfer and the emergence of Page curves is a robust feature of any multilinear interaction Hamiltonian with a bounded spectrum.

An exploding primordialblack hole (PBH) may produce a single pulse of electromagnetic radiation detectable at the low-frequency end of the radio spectrum. Furthermore, a radio transient from an exploding PBH could be a signature of an extra spatial dimension. We describe here an approach for searching for PBH explosions using a low-frequency radio antenna array, and as a practical example, the results of such a search using the Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array (ETA). No compelling astrophysical signal was detected in ≈4 hr of data, implying an observational upper limit on the rate of exploding PBHs is 2.3 × 10-7 pc-3 yr-1 for an exploding PBH with a fireball Lorentz factor of 104.3 for the standard scenario of Page and Hawking. This rate limit is the strongest constraint yet set for PBH explosions with this fireball Lorentz factor. Observations (~300 hr) using the Arecibo Observatory were used to set a stronger constraint on the rate of PBH explosions for a fireball Lorentz factor of 104.6, but the limit set by those observations for the fireball Lorentz factor considered here are less stringent by more than an order of magnitude. The limits considered here are applicable to exploding PBHs in the halo of the Galaxy. These observations also imply an upper limit of 2.3 × 10-4 pc-3 yr-1 on the rate of PBH explosions in the context of certain extra dimension models, as described by Kavic et al. This rate limit is for a fireball Lorentz factor of 104.3, which corresponds to an extra dimension compactification scale of 5.0 × 10-18 m.

In this work we study how tunneling time depends on the squeezing parameter of quantum states. Squeezed quantum states are investigated for optical communications and appear in the emission from black holes. A surprising property of these states is reduced tunneling time. Treating Hawking radiation as a quantum tunneling process, we study the interplay of squeezing with the radiation process.

In 1976 S. Hawking claimed that "Because part of the information about the state of the system is lost down the hole, the final situation is represented by a density matrix rather than a pure quantum state".1 In a series of papers, together with collaborators, we naturally interpreted BH quasi-normal modes (QNMs) in terms of quantum levels discussing a model of excited BH somewhat similar to the historical semi-classical Bohr model of the structure of a hydrogen atom. Here we explicitly write down, for the same model, a time dependent Schrödinger equation for the system composed by Hawking radiation and BH QNMs. The physical state and the correspondent wave function are written in terms of a unitary evolution matrix instead of a density matrix. Thus, the final state results to be a pure quantum state instead of a mixed one. Hence, Hawking's claim is falsified because BHs result to be well defined quantum mechanical systems, having ordered, discrete quantum spectra, which respect 't Hooft's assumption that Schrödinger equations can be used universally for all dynamics in the universe. As a consequence, information comes out in BH evaporation in terms of pure states in a unitary time dependent evolution. In Section 4 of this paper we show that the present approach permits also to solve the entanglement problem connected with the information paradox.

Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) describes the production of light nuclei in the early phases of the Universe. For this, precise knowledge of the cosmological parameters, such as the baryon density, as well as the cross section of the fusion reactions involved are needed. In general, the energies of interest for BBN are so low ( E < 1MeV) that nuclear cross section measurements are practically unfeasible at the Earth's surface. As of today, LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) has been the only facility in the world available to perform direct measurements of small cross section in a very low background radiation. Owing to the background suppression provided by about 1400 meters of rock at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), Italy, and to the high current offered by the LUNA accelerator, it has been possible to investigate cross sections at energies of interest for Big Bang nucleosynthesis using protons, 3He and alpha particles as projectiles. The main reaction studied in the past at LUNA is the 2H(4He, γ)6Li . Its cross section was measured directly, for the first time, in the BBN energy range. Other processes like 2H(p, γ)3He , 3He(2H, p)4He and 3He(4He, γ)7Be were also studied at LUNA, thus enabling to reduce the uncertainty on the overall reaction rate and consequently on the determination of primordial abundances. The improvements on BBN due to the LUNA experimental data will be discussed and a perspective of future measurements will be outlined.

Primordial magnetic fields that exist before the photon-baryon decoupling epoch are damped on length scales below the photon diffusion and free-streaming scales. The energy injected into the plasma by dissipation of magnetosonic and Alfv and apos;en waves heats photons, creating a y-type distortion of the black-body spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. This y-type distortion is converted into a μ-type distortion when elastic Compton scattering is efficient. Therefore, we can use observational limits on y- and μ-type distortions to constrain properties of magnetic fields in the early universe. Assuming a Gaussian, random, and non-helical field, we calculate μ and y as a function of the present-day strength of the field, B{sub 0}, smoothed over a certain Gaussian width, k{sub c}{sup −1}, as well as of the spectral index of the power spectrum of fields, n{sub B}, defined by P{sub B}(k)∝k{sup n{sub B}}. For a nearly scale-invariant spectrum with n{sub B} = −2.9 and a Gaussian smoothing width of k{sub c}{sup −1} = 1Mpc, the existing COBE/FIRAS limit on μ yields B{sub 0} < 40 nG, whereas the projected PIXIE limit on μ would yield B{sub 0} < 0.8 nG. For non-scale-invariant spectra, constraints can be stronger. For example, for B{sub 0} = 1 nG with k{sub c}{sup −1} = 1Mpc, the COBE/FIRAS limit on μ excludes a wide range of spectral indices given by n{sub B} > −2.6. After decoupling, energy dissipation is due to ambipolar diffusion and decaying MHD turbulence, creating a y-type distortion. The distortion is completely dominated by decaying MHD turbulence, and is of order y ≈ 10{sup −7} for a few nG field smoothed over the damping scale at the decoupling epoch, k{sub d,} {sub dec} ≈ 290(B{sub 0}/1nG){sup −1}Mpc{sup −1}. The projected PIXIE limit on y would exclude B{sub 0} > 1.0 and 0.6 nG for n{sub B} = −2.9 and -2.3, respectively, and B{sub 0} > 0.6 nG for n{sub B} ≥ 2. Finally, we find that the current limits on the optical depth to

Thermal Hawking emission from black holes is a remarkable consequence of the unification of quantum physics and gravitation. Black holes of a few solar masses are the only ones which can form in the present universe. However, having temperatures million times smaller than the ambient cosmic background radiation they cannot evaporate. Primordialblack holes of M ˜ 1014g would evaporate over a Hubble age and considerable ongoing effort is on to detect such explosions. I point out, however, that at the early universe epochs when such black holes form, the ambient radiation temperature considerably exceeds their corresponding Hawking temperature. This results in rapid continual accretion (absorption) of ambient radiation by these holes. Consequently by the end of the radiation era their masses grow much greater so that their lifetimes (scaling as M3) would now be enormously greater than the Hubble age implying undetectably small emission.

We reexamine the problem of boiling and surface evaporation of quark nuggets in the cosmological quark-hadron transition with the explicit consideration of pairing between quarks in a color-flavor locked state. Assuming that primordial quark nuggets are actually formed, we analyze the consequences of pairing on the rates of boiling and surface evaporation in order to determine whether they could have survived with substantial mass. We find a substantial quenching of the evaporation+boiling processes, which suggests the survival of primordial nuggets for the currently considered range of the pairing gap Δ. Boiling is shown to depend on the competition of an increased stability window and the suppression of the rate, and is not likely to dominate the destruction of the nuggets. If surface evaporation dominates, the fate of the nuggets depends on the features of the initial mass spectrum of the nuggets, their evaporation rate, and the value of the pairing gap, as shown and discussed in the text.

We apply the disk-corona evaporation model (Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister) originally derived for dwarf novae to black hole systems. This model describes the transition of a thin cool outer disk to a hot coronal flow. The mass accretion rate determines the location of this transition. For a number of well-studied black hole binaries, we take the mass flow rates derived from a fit of the advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) model to the observed spectra (for a review, see Narayan, Mahadevan, & Quataert) and determine where the transition of accretion via a cool disk to a coronal flow/ADAF would be located for these rates. We compare this with the observed location of the inner disk edge, as estimated from the maximum velocity of the Halpha emission line. We find that the transition caused by evaporation agrees with this determination in stellar disks. We also show that the ADAF and the "thin outer disk + corona" are compatible in terms of the physics in the transition region. PMID:10566989

We study the effect of curvaton decay on the primordial power spectrum. Using analytical approximations and also numerical calculations, we find that the power spectrum is enhanced during the radiation dominated era after the curvaton decay. The amplitude of the Bardeen potential is controlled by the fraction of the energy density in the curvaton at the time of curvaton decay. We show that the enhancement in the amplitude of the primordial curvature perturbation is, however, not large enough to lead to primordialblack hole overproduction on scales which reenter the horizon after the time of curvaton decay.

The abundances of D, He-3, He-4, and Li-7, are presently recalculated within the framework of primordial nucleosynthesis in the standard hot big band model, in order to estimate the primordial abundances of the light elements. A comparison between theory and experiment demonstrates the consistency of standard model predictions; the baryon density parameter is constrained on the basis of a nucleon-to-photon ratio of 2.8-4.0. These bounds imply that the bulk of the baryons in the universe are dark, requiring that the universe be dominated by nonbaryonic matter.

Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter - matter's arch nemesis - leftover from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult. Antimatter is made up of elementary particles, each of which has the same mass as their corresponding matter counterparts --protons, neutrons and electrons -- but the opposite charges and magnetic properties. When matter and antimatter particles collide, they annihilate each other and produce energy according to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2. According to the Big Bang model, the Universe was awash in particles of both matter and antimatter shortly after the Big Bang. Most of this material annihilated, but because there was slightly more matter than antimatter - less than one part per billion - only matter was left behind, at least in the local Universe. Trace amounts of antimatter are believed to be produced by powerful phenomena such as relativistic jets powered by black holes and pulsars, but no evidence has yet been found for antimatter remaining from the infant Universe. How could any primordial antimatter have survived? Just after the Big Bang there was believed to be an extraordinary period, called inflation, when the Universe expanded exponentially in just a fraction of a second. "If clumps of matter and antimatter existed next to each other before inflation, they may now be separated by more than the scale of the observable Universe, so we would never see them meet," said Gary Steigman of The Ohio State University, who conducted the study. "But, they might be separated on smaller scales, such as those of superclusters or clusters, which is a much more interesting possibility." X-rayChandra X-ray Image In that case, collisions between two galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the Universe, might show evidence for antimatter. X-ray emission shows how much hot

Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter - matter's arch nemesis - leftover from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult. Antimatter is made up of elementary particles, each of which has the same mass as their corresponding matter counterparts --protons, neutrons and electrons -- but the opposite charges and magnetic properties. When matter and antimatter particles collide, they annihilate each other and produce energy according to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2. According to the Big Bang model, the Universe was awash in particles of both matter and antimatter shortly after the Big Bang. Most of this material annihilated, but because there was slightly more matter than antimatter - less than one part per billion - only matter was left behind, at least in the local Universe. Trace amounts of antimatter are believed to be produced by powerful phenomena such as relativistic jets powered by black holes and pulsars, but no evidence has yet been found for antimatter remaining from the infant Universe. How could any primordial antimatter have survived? Just after the Big Bang there was believed to be an extraordinary period, called inflation, when the Universe expanded exponentially in just a fraction of a second. "If clumps of matter and antimatter existed next to each other before inflation, they may now be separated by more than the scale of the observable Universe, so we would never see them meet," said Gary Steigman of The Ohio State University, who conducted the study. "But, they might be separated on smaller scales, such as those of superclusters or clusters, which is a much more interesting possibility." X-rayChandra X-ray Image In that case, collisions between two galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the Universe, might show evidence for antimatter. X-ray emission shows how much hot

This paper reports on an intriguing pilot project developed to control air emissions from a pulp mill. Testing is complete, and the results show favorable emissions reductions. Stone Container Corporation, REECO, NCASI, the Ohio DEP, and the US EPA, have all worked together and approved the installation of control equipment, for VOC and HAP emissions under Presumptive MACT, setting the standard for the Copeland Reactor process in a semi chem pulp mill. The equipment, once operational, will reduce VOC and CO emissions by greater than 90%. This installation will be done at one seventh the cost of the significant process modifications required to accomplish the same emission reduction. In addition, increased process operating efficiency will be achieved with the use of an energy recovery system. The process is a black liquor fluidized bed boiler, which is used to generate sodium carbonate from the black liquor. The vapor emissions were high in VOCs, CO and particulate. After much study and testing, a wet electrostatic precipitator was chosen as the filter system for particulate control, followed by a regenerative thermal oxidizer for VOC and HAP control, finally an air-to-air heat exchanger is being used to preheat the combustion air entering the process.

The 21-cm signal from the cosmic reionization epoch can shed light on the history of heating of the primordial intergalactic medium (IGM) at z ˜ 30-10. It has been suggested that X-rays from the first accreting black holes could significantly heat the Universe at these early epochs. Here we propose another IGM heating mechanism associated with the first stars. As known from previous work, the remnants of powerful supernovae (SNe) ending the lives of massive Population III stars could readily expand out of their host dark matter minihaloes into the surrounding IGM, aided by the preceding photo-evaporation of the halo's gas by the UV radiation from the progenitor star. We argue that during the evolution of such a remnant, a significant fraction of the SN kinetic energy can be put into low-energy (E ≲ 30 MeV) cosmic rays that will eventually escape into the IGM. These subrelativistic cosmic rays could propagate through the Universe and heat the IGM by ˜10-100 K by z ˜ 15, before more powerful reionization/heating mechanisms associated with the first galaxies and quasars came into play. Future 21-cm observations could thus constrain the energetics of the first SNe and provide information on the magnetic fields in the primordial IGM.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r < 10(exp -3) at 5 standard deviations. The rich PIXIE data set will also constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. I describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the inflationary signature using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

Primordial is a term which applied to material that entered the solar system early and became incorporated into a meteorite without totally losing its identity. Identification of such material surviving in meteorites is so far solely through recognition of anomalous isotopic compositions of generally macroscopic entities contained within those meteorites. Isotopic anomalies are, by definition, isotopic compositions which differ from the canonical solar system abundances in ways which cannot be explained in terms of local processes such as mass dependent fractionation, cosmic ray induced spallation or decay of radionuclides. A comprehensive account of isotopic anomalies is impractical here, so it is necessary to be selective. Issues which are potentially addressable through the study of such primordial material are examined. Those issues will be illustrated with specific, but not exhaustive, examples.

We find that the end state of black hole evaporation could be represented by non-singular and without event horizon stable solitonic remnants with masses of the order the Planck scale and up to ∼ 16 units of charge. Though these objects are locally indistinguishable from spherically symmetric, massive electric (or magnetic) charges, they turn out to be sourceless geons containing a wormhole generated by the electromagnetic field. Our results are obtained by interpreting semiclassical corrections to Einstein's theory in the first-order (Palatini) formalism, which yields second-order equations and avoids the instabilities of the usual (metric) formulation of quadratic gravity. We also discuss the potential relevance of these solutions for primordialblack holes and the dark matter problem.

The combination of detections of anisotropy in cosmic microwave background radiation and observations of the large-scale distribution of galaxies probes the primordial density fluctuations of the universe on spatial scales varying by three orders of magnitude. These data are found to be inconsistent with the predictions of several popular cosmological models. Agreement between the data and the cold + hot dark matter model, however, suggests that a significant fraction of the matter in the universe may consist of massive neutrinos. PMID:9603724

The study of primordial star formation has a history of nearly sixty years. It is generally thought that primordial stars are one of the key elements in a broad range of topics in astronomy and cosmology, from Galactic chemical evolution to the formation of super-massive blackholes. We review recent progress in the theory of primordial star formation. The standard theory of cosmic structure formation posits that the present-day rich structure of the Universe developed through gravitational amplification of tiny matter density fluctuations left over from the Big Bang. It has become possible to study primordial star formation rigorously within the framework of the standard cosmological model. We first lay out the key physical processes in a primordial gas. Then, we introduce recent developments in computer simulations. Finally, we discuss prospects for future observations of the first generation of stars.

With the Planck 2015 Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization data, we search for possible features in the primordial power spectrum (PPS). We revisit the Wiggly Whipped Inflation (WWI) framework and demonstrate how generation of some particular primordial features can improve the fit to Planck data. WWI potential allows the scalar field to transit from a steeper potential to a nearly flat potential through a discontinuity either in potential or in its derivatives. WWI offers the inflaton potential parametrizations that generate a wide variety of features in the primordial power spectra incorporating most of the localized and non-local inflationary features that are obtained upon reconstruction from temperature and polarization angular power spectrum. At the same time, in a single framework it allows us to have a background parameter estimation with a nearly free-form primordial spectrum. Using Planck 2015 data, we constrain the primordial features in the context of Wiggly Whipped Inflation and present the features that are supported both by temperature and polarization. WWI model provides more than 13 improvement in χ2 fit to the data with respect to the best fit power law model considering combined temperature and polarization data from Planck and B-mode polarization data from BICEP and Planck dust map. We use 2-4 extra parameters in the WWI model compared to the featureless strict slow roll inflaton potential. We find that the differences between the temperature and polarization data in constraining background cosmological parameters such as baryon density, cold dark matter density are reduced to a good extent if we use primordial power spectra from WWI. We also discuss the extent of bispectra obtained from the best potentials in arbitrary triangular configurations using the BI-spectra and Non-Gaussianity Operator (BINGO).

Evaporation is the consequence of heating near the top of streamers in ideal Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) models, where the plasma is weakly contained by the magnetic field. Heating causes slow opening of field lines and release of new solar wind. It was discovered in simulations and, due to the absence of loss mechanisms, the ultimate end point is the complete evaporation of the streamer. Of course streamers do not behave in this way because there are losses by thermal conduction and radiation. Physically, heating is also expected to depend on ambient conditions. We use our global MHD model with thermal conduction to examine the effect of changing the heating scale height. We also apply and extend an analytic model of streamers developed by Pneuman (1968) to show that steady streamers are unable to contain plasma for temperatures near the cusp greater than approximately 2 x 10(exp 6) K.

Liquid fuel combustion process is greatly affected by the rate of droplet evaporation. The heat and mass exchanges between gas and liquid couple the dynamics of both phases in all aspects: mass, momentum, and energy. Correct prediction of the evaporation rate is therefore a key issue in engineering design of liquid combustion devices. Current analytical tools for characterizing the behavior of these devices are based on results from a single isolated droplet. Numerous experimental studies have challenged the applicability of these results in a dense spray. To account for the droplets' interaction in a dense spray, a number of theories have been developed in the past decade. Herein, two tasks are examined. One was to study how to implement the existing theoretical results, and the other was to explore the possibility of experimental verifications. The current theoretical results of group evaporation are given for a monodispersed cluster subject to adiabatic conditions. The time evolution of the fluid mechanic and thermodynamic behavior in this cluster is derived. The results given are not in the form of a subscale model for CFD codes.

We present a model that rotating primordial blackholes(PBHs) produced at the end of inflation generate the random, non-oriented primordial magnetic field. PBHs are copiously produced as the Universe completes the cosmic phase transition via bubble nucleation and tunneling processes in the extended inflation hypothesis. The PBHs produced acquire angular momentum through the mutual tidal gravitational interaction. For PBHs of mass less than 10E13 g, one can show that the evaporation (photon) luminosity of PBHs exceeds the Eddington limit. Thus throughout the lifetime of the rotating PBH, radiation flow from the central blackhole along the Kerr-geodesic exerts torque to ambient plasma. In the process similar to the Bierman's battery mechanism electron current reaching up to the horizon scale is induced. For PBHs of Grand Unified Theories extended inflation with the symmetry breaking temperature of Tgut ~ 10E10 GeV, which evaporate near decoupling, we find that they generate random, non-oriented magnetic fields of about 10E-11 G on the last-scattering surface on (the present comoving) scales of about O(10) Mpc.

It is shown, for a very simple model of the moon, that the existence of a primordial core magnetic field would give rise to a present day nonzero dipole external field. In the investigation a uniformly magnetized core embedded in a permeable mantle is considered. The significance of the obtained results for the conclusions reported by Runcorn (1975) is discussed. Comments provided by Runcorn to the discussion are also presented.

Cosmic superstrings are produced at the end of brane inflation. Their properties are similar to cosmic strings arising in grand unified theories. Like cosmic strings they can give rise to a primordial magnetic field, as a result of vortical motions stirred in the ionized plasma by the gravitational pull of moving string segments. The resulting magnetic field is both strong enough and coherent enough to seed the galactic dynamo and explain the observed magnetic fields of the galaxies.

Using modified Richardson-Lucy algorithm we reconstruct the primordial power spectrum (PPS) from Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy data. In our analysis we use different combinations of angular power spectra from Planck to reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum and locate possible features. Performing an extensive error analysis we found the dip near l ~ 750-850 represents the most prominent feature in the data. Feature near l ~ 1800-2000 is detectable with high confidence only in 217 GHz spectrum and is apparently consequence of a small systematic as described in the revised Planck 2013 papers. Fixing the background cosmological parameters and the foreground nuisance parameters to their best fit baseline values, we report that the best fit power law primordial power spectrum is consistent with the reconstructed form of the PPS at 2σ C.L. of the estimated errors (apart from the local features mentioned above). As a consistency test, we found the reconstructed primordial power spectrum from Planck temperature data can also substantially improve the fit to WMAP-9 angular power spectrum data (with respect to power-law form of the PPS) allowing an overall amplitude shift of ~ 2.5%. In this context low-l and 100 GHz spectrum from Planck which have proper overlap in the multipole range with WMAP data found to be completely consistent with WMAP-9 (allowing amplitude shift). As another important result of our analysis we do report the evidence of gravitational lensing through the reconstruction analysis. Finally we present two smooth form of the PPS containing only the important features. These smooth forms of PPS can provide significant improvements in fitting the data (with respect to the power law PPS) and can be helpful to give hints for inflationary model building.

A revision of the standard model for Big Bang nucleosynthesis is discussed which allows for the presence of generic particle species. The primordial production of He-4 and D + He-3 is calculated as a function of the mass, spin degrees of freedom, and spin statistics of the generic particle for masses in the range 0.01-100 times the electron mass. The particular case of the Gelmini and Roncadelli majoron model for massive neutrinos is discussed.

Using modified Richardson-Lucy algorithm we reconstruct the primordial power spectrum (PPS) from Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy data. In our analysis we use different combinations of angular power spectra from Planck to reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum and locate possible features. Performing an extensive error analysis we found the dip near ℓ ∼ 750–850 represents the most prominent feature in the data. Feature near ℓ ∼ 1800–2000 is detectable with high confidence only in 217 GHz spectrum and is apparently consequence of a small systematic as described in the revised Planck 2013 papers. Fixing the background cosmological parameters and the foreground nuisance parameters to their best fit baseline values, we report that the best fit power law primordial power spectrum is consistent with the reconstructed form of the PPS at 2σ C.L. of the estimated errors (apart from the local features mentioned above). As a consistency test, we found the reconstructed primordial power spectrum from Planck temperature data can also substantially improve the fit to WMAP-9 angular power spectrum data (with respect to power-law form of the PPS) allowing an overall amplitude shift of ∼ 2.5%. In this context low-ℓ and 100 GHz spectrum from Planck which have proper overlap in the multipole range with WMAP data found to be completely consistent with WMAP-9 (allowing amplitude shift). As another important result of our analysis we do report the evidence of gravitational lensing through the reconstruction analysis. Finally we present two smooth form of the PPS containing only the important features. These smooth forms of PPS can provide significant improvements in fitting the data (with respect to the power law PPS) and can be helpful to give hints for inflationary model building.

Evaporation is the consequence of slow plasma heating near the tops of streamers where the plasma is only weakly contained by the magnetic field. The form it takes is the slow opening of field lines at the top of the streamer and transient formation of new solar wind. It was discovered in polytropic model calculations, where due to the absence of other energy loss mechanisms in magnetostatic streamers, its ultimate endpoint is the complete evaporation of the streamer. This takes, for plausible heating rates, weeks to months in these models. Of course streamers do not behave this way, for more than one reason. One is that there are losses due to thermal conduction to the base of the streamer and radiation from the transition region. Another is that streamer heating must have a characteristic time constant and depend on the ambient physical conditions. We use our global Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model with thermal conduction to examine a few examples of the effect of changing the heating scale height and of making ad hoc choices for how the heating depends on ambient conditions. At the same time, we apply and extend the analytic model of streamers, which showed that streamers will be unable to contain plasma for temperatures near the cusp greater than about 2xl0(exp 6) K. Slow solar wind is observed to come from streamers through transient releases. A scenario for this that is consistent with the above physical process is that heating increases the near-cusp temperature until field lines there are forced open. The subsequent evacuation of the flux tubes by the newly forming slow wind decreases the temperature and heating until the flux tubes are able to reclose. Then, over a longer time scale, heating begins to again refill the flux tubes with plasma and increase the temperature until the cycle repeats itself. The calculations we report here are first steps towards quantitative evaluation of this scenario.

We review the different ways in which black holes might form and discuss their various astrophysical and cosmological consequences. We then consider the various constraints on the form of the dark matter and conclude that black holes could have a significant cosmological density only if they are of primordial origin or remnants of a population of pregalactic stars. This leads us to discuss the other cosmological effects of primordialblack holes and pregalactic stars. 239 refs., 7 figs., 5 tabs.

Primordial dark matter (DM) haloes are the smallest gravitationally bound DM structures from which the first stars, black holes and galaxies form and grow in the early universe. However, their structures are sensitive to the free streaming scale of DM, which in turn depends on the nature of DM particles. In this work, we test the hypothesis that the slope of the central cusps in primordial DM haloes near the free streaming scale depends on the nature of merging process. By combining and analysing data from a cosmological simulation with the cutoff in the small-scale matter power spectrum as well as a suite of controlled, high-resolution simulations of binary mergers, we find that (1) the primordial DM haloes form preferentially through major mergers in radial orbits; (2) their central DM density profile is more susceptible to a merging process compared to that of galaxy- and cluster-sized DM haloes; (3) consecutive major mergers drive the central density slope to approach the universal form characterized by the Navarro-Frenk-White profile, which is shown to be robust to the impacts of mergers and serves an attractor solution for the density structure of DM haloes. Our work highlights the importance of dynamical processes on the structure formation during the Dark Ages.

The observation of primordial gravitational waves could provide a new and unique window on the earliest moments in the history of the universe and on possible new physics at energies many orders of magnitude beyond those accessible at particle accelerators. Such waves might be detectable soon, in current or planned satellite experiments that will probe for characteristic imprints in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background, or later with direct space-based interferometers. A positive detection could provide definitive evidence for inflation in the early universe and would constrain new physics from the grand unification scale to the Planck scale. PMID:20489015

We propose a mechanism to evade the Lyth bound in models of inflation. We minimally extend the conventional single-field inflation model in general relativity (GR) to a theory with non-vanishing graviton mass in the very early universe. The modification primarily affects the tensor perturbation, while the scalar and vector perturbations are the same as the ones in GR with a single scalar field at least at the level of linear perturbation theory. During the reheating stage, the graviton mass oscillates coherently and leads to resonant amplification of the primordial tensor perturbation. After reheating the graviton mass vanishes and we recover GR.

The apparent discrepancy between abundances of light nuclides predicted by the standard big bang and observational data is explained by assuming the presence of metastable H dibaryons at the nucleosynthesis era. These dibaryons could be formed out of a small fraction of strange quarks at the moment of the confinement transition. For a primordial deuterium abundance of the order of 3×10-5, the measured differences in the 4He abundances requires a relative abundance of H dibaryons of the order of nH/nB~0.07, decaying in a time scale of the order of 105 s.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). Multi-moded non-imaging optics feed a polarizing Fourier Transform Spectrometer to produce a set of interference fringes, proportional to the difference spectrum between orthogonal linear polarizations from the two input beams. The differential design and multiple signal modulations spanning 11 orders of magnitude in time combine to reduce the instrumental signature and confusion from unpolarized sources to negligible levels. PIXIE will map the full sky in Stokes I, Q, and U parameters with angular resolution 2.6 deg and sensitivity 0.2 uK per 1 deg square pixel. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r <10(exp -3) at 5 standard deviations. In addition, the rich PIXIE data will constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to the physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. We describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the signature of an inflationary epoch in the early universe using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). Multi-moded non-imaging optics feed a polarizing Fourier Transform Spectrometer to produce a set of interference fringes, proportional to the difference spectrum between orthogonal linear polarizations from the two input beams. Multiple levels of symmetry and signal modulation combine to reduce the instrumental signature and confusion from unpolarized sources to negligible levels. PIXIE will map the full sky in Stokes I, Q, and U parameters with angular resolution 2.6 deg and sensitivity 0.2 µK per 1 deg square pixel. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r less than 10(exp -3) at 5 standard deviations. In addition, PIXIE will measure the absolute frequency spectrum to constrain physical processes ranging from inflation to the nature of the first stars to the physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. We describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture with an emphasis on the expected level of systematic error suppression.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a balloon-borne instrument to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background in search of the expected signature of primordial gravity waves excited during an inflationary epoch shortly after the Big Bang. PIPER consists of two co-pointed telescopes, one sensitive to the Q Stokes parameter and the other to U. Sky signals will be detected with 5120 transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers distributed in four rectangular close-packed arrays maintained at 150 mK. To maximize the sensitivity of the instrument, both telescopes are mounted within a single open bucket dewar and are maintained at 1.5 K throughout flight, with no ambient-temperature windows between the sky and the detectors. To mitigate the effects of systematic errors, the polarized sky signals will be modulated using a variable-delay polarization modulator. PIPER will observe at frequencies 200, 270, 350, and 600 GHz to separate the CMB from polarized dust emission within the Galaxy. A series of flights alternating between northern and southern hemisphere launch sites will produce nearly full-sky maps in Stokes I, Q, U, and V. I will discuss the current status and potential science returns from the PIPER project.

We show that black holes can be quantized in an intuitive and elegant way with results in agreement with conventional knowledge of black holes by using Bohr's idea of quantizing the motion of an electron inside the atom in quantum mechanics. We find that properties of black holes can also be derived from an ansatz of quantized entropy Δ S = 4π k Δ R/{{-{λ }}}, which was suggested in a previous work to unify the black hole entropy formula and Verlinde's conjecture to explain gravity as an entropic force. Such an Ansatz also explains gravity as an entropic force from quantum effect. This suggests a way to unify gravity with quantum theory. Several interesting and surprising results of black holes are given from which we predict the existence of primordialblack holes ranging from Planck scale both in size and energy to big ones in size but with low energy behaviors.

Bulk chemical and oxygen, magnesium and silicon isotopic compositions were measured for each of 17 Types A and B refractory inclusions from CV3 chondrites. After bulk chemical compositions were corrected for non-representative sampling in the laboratory, the Mg and Si isotopic compositions of each inclusion were used to calculate its original chemical composition assuming that the heavy-isotope enrichments of these elements are due to Rayleigh fractionation that accompanied their evaporation from CMAS liquids. The resulting pre-evaporation chemical compositions are consistent with those predicted by equilibrium thermodynamic calculations for high-temperature nebular condensates but only if different inclusions condensed from nebular regions that ranged in total pressure from 10{sup -6} to 10{sup -1} bar, regardless of whether they formed in a system of solar composition or in one enriched in OC dust relative to gas by a factor of ten relative to solar composition. This is similar to the range of total pressures predicted by dynamic models of the solar nebula for regions whose temperatures are in the range of silicate condensation temperatures. Alternatively, if departure from equilibrium condensation and/or non-representative sampling of condensates in the nebula occurred, the inferred range of total pressure could be smaller. Simple kinetic modeling of evaporation successfully reproduces observed chemical compositions of most inclusions from their inferred pre-evaporation compositions, suggesting that closed-system isotopic exchange processes did not have a significant effect on their isotopic compositions. Comparison of pre-evaporation compositions with observed ones indicates that 80% of the enrichment in refractory CaO + Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} relative to more volatile MgO + SiO{sub 2} is due to initial condensation and 20% due to subsequent evaporation for both Type A and Type B inclusions.

We study non-Gaussianity generated by adiabatic and isocurvature primordial perturbations. We first obtain, in a very general setting, the non-linear perturbations, up to third order, for an arbitrary number of cosmological fluids, going through one or several decay transitions. We then apply this formalism to the mixed curvaton and inflaton model, allowing for several decay channels. We compute the various contributions to the bispectrum and trispectrum resulting from adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations, which are correlated in general. By investigating some hybrid decay scenario, we show that significant non-Gaussianity of adiabatic and isocurvature types can be generated without conflicting with the present isocurvature constraints from the power spectrum. In particular, we find cases where non-Gaussianity of isocurvature origin can dominate its adiabatic counterpart, both in the bispectrum and in the trispectrum.

Ionizing UV radiation and supernova (SN) flows amidst clustered minihalos at high redshift regulated the rise of the first stellar populations in the universe. Previous studies have addressed the effects of very massive primordial stars on the collapse of nearby halos into new stars, but the absence of the odd-even nucleosynthetic signature of pair-instability SNe in ancient metal-poor stars suggests that Population III stars may have been less than 100 M sun. We extend our earlier survey of local UV feedback on star formation to 25-80 M sun stars and include kinetic feedback by SNe for 25-40 M sun stars. We find radiative feedback to be relatively uniform over this mass range, primarily because the larger fluxes of more massive stars are offset by their shorter lifetimes. Our models demonstrate that prior to the rise of global UV backgrounds, Lyman-Werner (LW) photons from nearby stars cannot prevent halos from forming new stars. These calculations also reveal that violent dynamical instabilities can erupt in the UV radiation front enveloping a primordial halo, but that they ultimately have no effect on the formation of a star. Finally, our simulations suggest that relic H II regions surrounding partially evaporated halos may expel LW backgrounds at lower redshifts, allowing stars to form that were previously suppressed. We provide fits to radiative and kinetic feedback on star formation for use in both semianalytic models and numerical simulations.

Knowledge of the primordial isotope composition of Pb in the Solar System is critical to the understanding of the early evolution of Earth and other planetary bodies. Here we present new Pb isotopic data on troilite (FeS) nodules from a number of different iron meteorites: Canyon Diablo, Mundrabilla, Nantan, Seeläsgen, Toluca (IAB-IIICD), Cape York (IIIA), Mt Edith (IIIB), and Seymchan (pallasite). Lead abundances and isotopic compositions typically vary from one troilite inclusion to another, even within the same meteorite. The most primitive Pb was found in three leach fractions of two exceptionally Pb-rich Nantan troilite nodules. Its 204Pb/ 206Pb is identical to that of Canyon Diablo troilite as measured by Tatsumoto et al. [M. Tatsumoto, R.J. Knight, C.J. Allègre, Time differences in the formation of meteorites as determined from the ratio of lead-207 to lead-206, Science 180(1973) 1279-1283]. However, our measurements of 207Pb/ 206Pb and 208Pb/ 206Pb are significantly higher than theirs, as well as other older literature data obtained by TIMS, while consistent with the recent data of Connelly et al. [J.N. Connelly, M. Bizzarro, K. Thrane, J.A. Baker, The Pb-Pb age of Angrite SAH99555 revisited, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 72(2008) 4813-4824], a result we ascribe to instrumental mass fractionation having biased the older data. Our current best estimate of the Solar System primordial Pb is that of Nantan troilite, which has the following isotopic composition: 204Pb/ 206Pb = 0.107459(16), 207Pb/ 206Pb = 1.10759(10), and 208Pb/ 206Pb = 3.17347(28). This is slightly less radiogenic than the intercept of the bundle of isotopic arrays formed in 207Pb/ 206Pb- 204Pb/ 206Pb space by our measurements of Canyon Diablo, Nantan, Seeläsgen, Cape York, and Mundrabilla, as well as literature data, which, in spite of rather large uncertainties, suggests a common primordial Pb component for all of these meteorites. The radiogenic Pb present in most of these irons is dominantly

We apply hydrodynamic evaporation models to different synthetic planet populations that were obtained from a planet formation code based on the core-accretion paradigm. We investigated the evolution of the planet populations using several evaporation models, which are distinguished by the driving force of the escape flow (X-ray or EUV), the heating efficiency in energy-limited evaporation regimes, or both. Although the mass distribution of the planet populations is barely affected by evaporation, the radius distribution clearly shows a break at approximately 2 R {sub ⊕}. We find that evaporation can lead to a bimodal distribution of planetary sizes and to an 'evaporation valley' running diagonally downward in the orbital distance—planetary radius plane, separating bare cores from low-mass planets that have kept some primordial H/He. Furthermore, this bimodal distribution is related to the initial characteristics of the planetary populations because low-mass planetary cores can only accrete small primordial H/He envelopes and their envelope masses are proportional to their core masses. We also find that the population-wide effect of evaporation is not sensitive to the heating efficiency of energy-limited description. However, in two extreme cases, namely without evaporation or with a 100% heating efficiency in an evaporation model, the final size distributions show significant differences; these two scenarios can be ruled out from the size distribution of Kepler candidates.

Operation of the 242-16H High Level Waste Evaporator proves crucial to liquid waste management in the H-Area Tank Farm. Recent operational history of the Evaporator showed significant solid formation in secondary lines and in the evaporator pot. Additional samples remain necessary to ensure material identity in the evaporator pot. Analysis of these future samples will provide actinide partitioning information and dissolution characteristics of the solid material from the pot to ensure safe chemical cleaning.

The Allende C3V carbonaceous chondrite incorporated isotopically anomalous components of several medium-heavy elements (Z=36-62) from nucleosynthesis [1]. Isotopically distinct Xe (Z=54) has been found in grains ranging from several _ to a few mm in size. Diamond [2] is the host of Xe that is enriched in isotopes produced by the very rapid p- and r-processes in a supernova explosion [3]. Silicon carbide [4] is the host of Xe that is enriched in the middle isotopes, 128-132Xe, produced by slow neutron capture [3] before a star reaches the supernova stage. The present study was undertaken to identify the isotopic composition of primitive Xe initially trapped in sulfides of the Allende meteorite. Two FeS mineral separates were analyzed by stepwise heating. One sample was first irradiated in a neutron flux to generate a tracer isotope, 131*Xe, by the 130Te(n, gamma beta-)131*Xe reaction. The release pattern of this tracer isotope, 131*Xe, closely paralleled the release of primordial 132Xe up to 950 degrees C, when the sulfide melted and released the bulk of its trapped Xe (Figure 1). The Xe released from both samples at 950 deg C was terrestrial in isotopic composition, except for enrichments from spallogenic and radiogenic components (Figure 2). From the results of this and earlier analyses of Xe in meteoritic FeS [5, 6, 7], we conclude that terrestrial-type Xe was dominant in the central region of the protoplanetary nebula, and it remains a major component in the FeS of diverse meteorites and in the terrestrial planets that are rich in Fe, S [8]. References: [1] Begemann F. (1993) Origin and Evolution of the Elements (N. Prantzos et al., eds.), 518-527, Cambridge Univ. [2] Lewis R. S. and Anders E. (1988) LPS XIX, 679-680. [3] Burbidge et al. (1957) Rev. Modern Phys., 29, 547-650. [4] Tang M. and Anders E. (1988) GCA, 52, 1235-1244. [5] Niemeyer S. (1979) GCA, 43, 843-860. [6] Lewis et al. (1979) GCA, 43, 1743-1752. [7] Hwaung G. and Manuel O. K. (1982) Nature, 299

The Primordial Inflation Polarization ExploreR (PIPER) is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiment searching for large-angular scale B-mode polarization to constrain Inflation in the early universe. The Inflationary Big Bang theory predicts that the epoch of inflation will result in a background of gravitational waves. These gravitational waves imprinted their unique B-mode signature on the CMB polarization, two features of which are a peak at ell ~ 80 and a "bump" below ell ~ 10 in the B-mode angular power spectrum. The ell ~ 80 "recombination" peak is the first peak caused by gravitational waves imprinting tensor (B-mode) perturbations onto the CMB spectrum during recombination. Gravitational waves at larger scales have not yet entered the horizon and may not contribute, and at smaller scales have decayed away by other interactions, giving rise to a peak at horizon scale. The ell ~ 10 "reionization" bump is caused by a similar mechanism as the recombination peak, where gravitational waves imprint B-mode perturbations into the spectrum, now at larger horizon scales. PIPER will target the reionization bump while keeping enough angular resolution to measure the recombination peak, with sensitivity down to tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.007. A series of flights alternating between north and south will produce nearly full-sky temperature and polarization maps and measure the low-ell spectra. 5120 transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers each with 20 arcmin beamwidth, distributed into 4 rectangular close-packed arrays maintained at 150 mK will provide small-scale resolution and sensitivity. PIPER consists of two co-aligned telescopes, each with a front-end variable-delay polarization modulator rapidly modulating either the Q or U Stokes parameters to provide polarization sensitivity and mitigate systematic errors. To achieve background-limited sensitivity, the entire instrument is enclosed in an open bucket dewar maintained at 1.5 K. PIPER

Primordial nucleosynthesis remains as one of the pillars of modern cosmology. It is the test-ing ground upon which all cosmological models must ultimately rest. It is our only probe of the universe during the first few minutes of cosmic expansion and in particular during the important radiation-dominated epoch. These lectures review the basic equations of space-time, cosmology, and big bang nucleosynthesis. We will then review the current state of observational constraints on primordial abundances along with the key nuclear reactions and their uncertainties. We summarize which nuclear measure-ments are most crucial during the big bang. We also review various cosmological models and their constraints. In particular, we summarize the constraints that big bang nucleosynthesis places upon the possible time variation of fundamental constants, along with constraints on the nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy, long-lived supersymmetric particles, gravity waves, and the primordial magnetic field.

We present a systematic study of galaxy biasing in the presence of primordial non-Gaussianity. For a large class of non-Gaussian initial conditions, we define a general bias expansion and prove that it is closed under renormalization, thereby showing that the basis of operators in the expansion is complete. We then study the effects of primordial non-Gaussianity on the statistics of galaxies. We show that the equivalence principle enforces a relation between the scale-dependent bias in the galaxy power spectrum and that in the dipolar part of the bispectrum. This provides a powerful consistency check to confirm the primordial origin of any observed scale-dependent bias. Finally, we also discuss the imprints of anisotropic non-Gaussianity as motivated by recent studies of higher-spin fields during inflation.

Oscillating massive fields in the primordial universe can be used as Standard Clocks. The ticks of these oscillations induce features in the density perturbations, which directly record the time evolution of the scale factor of the primordial universe, thus if detected, provide a direct evidence for the inflation scenario or the alternatives. In this paper, we construct a full inflationary model of primordial Standard Clock and study its predictions on the density perturbations. This model provides a full realization of several key features proposed previously. We compare the theoretical predictions from inflation and alternative scenarios with the Planck 2013 temperature data on Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), and identify a statistically marginal but interesting candidate. We discuss how future CMB temperature and polarization data, non-Gaussianity analysis and Large Scale Structure data may be used to further test or constrain the Standard Clock signals.

We propose a new mechanism of generating the μ distortion in cosmic microwave background (CMB) originated from primordial gravitational waves. Such μ distortion is generated by the damping of the temperature anisotropies through the Thomson scattering, even on scales larger than that of Silk damping. This mechanism is in sharp contrast with that from the primordial curvature (scalar) perturbations, in which the temperature anisotropies mainly decay by Silk damping effects. We estimate the size of the μ distortion from the new mechanism, which can be used to constrain the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves on smaller scales independently from the CMB anisotropies, giving more wide-range constraint on their spectral index by combining the amplitude from the CMB anisotropies.

Primordial germ cells are the progenitor cells that give rise to the gametes. In some animals, the germline is induced by zygotic transcription factors, whereas in others, primordial germ cell specification occurs via inheritance of maternally provided gene products known as germ plasm. Once specified, the primordial germ cells of some animals must acquire motility and migrate to the gonad in order to survive. In all animals examined, perinuclear structures called germ granules form within germ cells. This review focuses on some of the recent studies, conducted by several groups using diverse systems, from invertebrates to vertebrates, which have provided mechanistic insight into the molecular regulation of germ cell specification and migration. PMID:26918157

We study the TTμ bispectrum, generated by correlations between Cosmic Microwave Background temperature (T) anisotropies and chemical potential (μ) distortions, and we analyze its dependence on primordial local trispectrum parameters gNL and τNL. We cross-check our results by comparing the full bispectrum calculation with the expectations from a general physical argument, based on predicting the shape of μ-T correlations from the couplings between short and long perturbation modes induced by primordial non-Gaussianity. We show that both gNL and τNL-parts of the primordial trispectrum source a non-vanishing TTμ signal, contrary to the μμ auto-correlation function, which is sensitive only to the τNL-component. A simple Fisher matrix-based forecast shows that a futuristic, cosmic-variance dominated experiment could in principle detect gNL ~ 0.4 and τNL ~ 40 using TTμ.

A laboratory prototype flash evaporator that is being developed as a candidate for the space shuttle environmental control system expendable heat sink is described. The single evaporator configuration uses water as an evaporant to accommodate reentry and on-orbit peak heat loads, and Freon 22 for terrestrial flight phases below 120,000 feet altitude. The design features, fabrication techniques used for the prototype unit, redundancy considerations, and the fluid temperature control arrangement are reported in detail. The results of an extensive test program to determine the evaporator operational characteristics under a wide variety of conditions are presented.

Supermassive stars (SMSs) forming via very rapid mass accretion (\\dot{M}_*\\gtrsim 0.1 \\,M_\\odot \\,yr^{-1}) could be precursors of supermassive black holes observed beyond a redshift of about six. Extending our previous work, here we study the evolution of primordial stars growing under such rapid mass accretion until the stellar mass reaches 104 - 5 M ⊙. Our stellar evolution calculations show that a star becomes supermassive while passing through the "supergiant protostar" stage, whereby the star has a very bloated envelope and a contracting inner core. The stellar radius increases monotonically with the stellar mass until ~= 100 AU for M * >~ 104 M ⊙, after which the star begins to slowly contract. Because of the large radius, the effective temperature is always less than 104 K during rapid accretion. The accreting material is thus almost completely transparent to the stellar radiation. Only for M * >~ 105 M ⊙ can stellar UV feedback operate and disturb the mass accretion flow. We also examine the pulsation stability of accreting SMSs, showing that the pulsation-driven mass loss does not prevent stellar mass growth. Observational signatures of bloated SMSs should be detectable with future observational facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope. Our results predict that an inner core of the accreting SMS should suffer from the general relativistic instability soon after the stellar mass exceeds 105 M ⊙. An extremely massive black hole should form after the collapse of the inner core.

Effects of heavy fields on primordial spectra of curvature perturbations are discussed in inflationary models with a sudden turning trajectory. When heavy fields are excited after the sudden turn and oscillate around the bottom of the potential, the following two effects are generically induced: deformation of the inflationary background spacetime and conversion interactions between adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations, both of which can affect the primordial density perturbations. In this paper, we calculate primordial spectra in inflationary models with sudden turning potentials taking into account both of the two effects appropriately. We find that there are some non-trivial correlations between the two effects in the power spectrum and, as a consequence, the primordial scalar power spectrum has a peak around the scale exiting the horizon at the turn. Though both effects can induce parametric resonance amplifications, they are shown to be canceled out for the case with the canonical kinetic terms. The peak feature and the scale dependence of bispectra are also discussed.

We study limits on a primordial magnetic field arising from cosmological data, including that from big bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background polarization plane Faraday rotation limits, and large-scale structure formation. We show that the physically relevant quantity is the value of the effective magnetic field, and limits on it are independent of how the magnetic field was generated.

Many asteroid families are identified and well characterized all over the main asteroid belt. Interestingly, however, none of them are older than 4 Gyr. Many mechanisms have been proposed to disperse such old primordial asteroid families that presumably have existed, but only very few have really worked. Here we present a plausible mechanism for dispersing primordial asteroid families that is based on the 5-planet instability model known as jumping Jupiter. Using two different evolutions for the jumping-Jupiter model, we have numerically integrated orbits of eight putative primordial families. Our results show that the most important effect on the asteroid families' eccentricity and inclination dispersal is that of the secular resonances, in some cases associated with the mean motion resonances. As for the semimajor axes spreading we find that the principal effect is that of close encounters with the fifth giant planet whose orbit briefly overlaps with (part of) the main belt. Therefore, the existence of a fifth giant planet with the mass comparable with that of Uranus' or Neptune's could contribute in important ways to dispersal of the primordial asteroid families. To have that effect, the interloper planet should go into and considerably interact with the asteroids during the instability phase.

This measure guideline on evaporative condensers provides information on properly designing, installing, and maintaining evaporative condenser systems as well as understanding the benefits, costs, and tradeoffs. This is a prescriptive approach that outlines selection criteria, design and installation procedures, and operation and maintenance best practices.

Evaporation and boiling are both terms applied to the change of a liquid to the vapour/gaseous state. This article argues that it is the formation of bubbles of vapour within the liquid that most clearly differentiates boiling from evaporation although only a minority of chemistry textbooks seems to mention bubble formation in this context. The…

An evaporative cooling membrane device is disclosed having a flat or pleated plate housing with an enclosed bottom and an exposed top that is covered with at least one sheet of hydrophobic porous material having a thin thickness so as to serve as a membrane. The hydrophobic porous material has pores with predetermined dimensions so as to resist any fluid in its liquid state from passing therethrough but to allow passage of the fluid in its vapor state, thereby, causing the evaporation of the fluid and the cooling of the remaining fluid. The fluid has a predetermined flow rate. The evaporative cooling membrane device has a channel which is sized in cooperation with the predetermined flow rate of the fluid so as to produce laminar flow therein. The evaporative cooling membrane device provides for the convenient control of the evaporation rates of the circulating fluid by adjusting the flow rates of the laminar flowing fluid.

Signatures of black hole events at CERN's Large Hadron Collider are discussed. Event simulations are carried out with the Fortran Monte Carlo generator CATFISH. Inelasticity effects, exact field emissivities, color and charge conservation, corrections to semiclassical black hole evaporation, gravitational energy loss at formation and possibility of a black hole remnant are included in the analysis.

We study the evolution of a massive scalar field surrounding a Schwarzschild black hole and find configurations that can survive for arbitrarily long times, provided the black hole or the scalar field mass is small enough. In particular, both ultralight scalar field dark matter around supermassive black holes and axionlike scalar fields around primordialblack holes can survive for cosmological times. Moreover, these results are quite generic in the sense that fairly arbitrary initial data evolve, at late times, as a combination of those long-lived configurations.

We study the evolution of a massive scalar field surrounding a Schwarzschild black hole and find configurations that can survive for arbitrarily long times, provided the black hole or the scalar field mass is small enough. In particular, both ultralight scalar field dark matter around supermassive black holes and axionlike scalar fields around primordialblack holes can survive for cosmological times. Moreover, these results are quite generic in the sense that fairly arbitrary initial data evolve, at late times, as a combination of those long-lived configurations. PMID:23002734

A flash evaporator heat rejection system representative of that proposed for the space shuttle orbiter underwent extensive system testing at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) to determine its operational suitability and to establish system performance/operational characteristics for use in the shuttle system. During the tests the evaporator system demonstrated its suitability to meet the shuttle requirements by: (1) efficient operation with 90 to 95% water evaporation efficiency, (2) control of outlet temperature to 40 + or - 2 F for partial heat load operation, (3) stability of control system for rapid changes in Freon inlet temperature, and (4) repeated dormant-to-active device operation without any startup procedures.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a balloon-borne instrument to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIPER combines cold (1.5 K) optics, 5120 bolometric detectors, and rapid polarization modulation using VPM grids to achieve both high sensitivity and excellent control of systematic errors. A series of flights alternating between northern and southern hemisphere launch sites will produce maps in Stokes I, Q, U, and V parameters at frequencies 200, 270, 350, and 600 GHz (wavelengths 1500, 1100, 850, and 500 microns) covering 85% of the sky. We describe the PIPER instrument and discuss the current status and expected science returns from the mission.

Primordial odontogenic tumor (POT) was first described in 2014. It typically presents in the posterior mandible of a child or adolescent as a "dentigerous cyst-like" well-circumscribed radiolucency associated with an unerupted molar. POT consists of an ellipsoidal mass of dental papilla-like myxoid connective tissue entirely enveloped in a delicate membrane of ameloblastic epithelium. It shows features of a developing tooth with a huge dental papilla, and because it is devoid of dental hard tissue, it could be regarded a soft tissue odontoma. The lesion histologically mimics early (primordial) stages of tooth development. This report describes a case of POT and POT-like proliferations in an unrelated complex odontoma. PMID:26408843

The melting of the core of a primordial comet due to heat released upon the radioactive decay of Al-26 contained within it is discussed. For a spherical, 10-km comet composed of loose snow and mineral grains in the primordial nebula, it is shown that a large fluid dust, droplet and vapor core could develop surrounded by a 1-km thick icy shell with enhanced conductivity and a further 2 km of snow metamorphosing by sublimation, diffusion and condensation into larger ice crystals. As the radioactivity decays, the comet center would gradually refreeze by the deposition of frost and hail on the interior of the ice shell, resulting in a hollow core which could explain the presumed splitting of some disintegrating comets and could have provided a well-protected environment for elementary biological systems.

We examine cosmological perturbations in a dynamical theory of inflation in which an Abelian gauge field couples directly to the inflaton, breaking conformal invariance. When the coupling between the gauge field and the inflaton takes a specific form, inflation becomes anisotropic and anisotropy can persist throughout inflation, avoiding Wald's no-hair theorem. After discussing scenarios in which anisotropy can persist during inflation, we calculate the dominant effects of a small persistent anisotropy on the primordial gravitational wave and curvature perturbation power spectra using the ''in-in'' formalism of perturbation theory. We find that the primordial power spectra of cosmological perturbations gain significant direction dependence and that the fractional direction dependence of the tensor power spectrum is suppressed in comparison to that of the scalar power spectrum.

The observability of primordial cosmic fluctuations does not require a geometric horizon H‑1, which is exceeded temporarily by the wavelength of fluctuations. The primordial information can be protected against later thermal washout even if all relevant wavelengths remain smaller than H‑1. This is demonstrated by formulating the equations governing the cosmic fluctuations in a form that is manifestly invariant under conformal field transformations of the metric. Beyond the field equations this holds for the defining equation for the correlation function, as expressed by the inverse of the second functional derivative of the quantum effective action. An observable almost scale invariant spectrum does not need an expanding geometry. For a variable Planck mass it can even arise in flat Minkowski space.

Consideration is given to the analysis of Falik (1979) which attempted to show that the cosmological model proposed by Canuto and Hsieh (1978) in which the gravitational constant varies with time contradicts observations of primordial helium. It is shown that the analysis was based on the assumptions that (1) the energy density of radiation in local thermodynamic equilibrium is approximately equal to the fourth power of the equilibrium temperature, where the product of the equilibrium temperature with the scale factor of the Robertson-Walker metric is constant, and (2) the gravitational constant is approximately equal to the inverse of the time even at early cosmological epochs. These assumptions are demonstrated to be invalid in the scale covariant theory of gravitation used to develop the model, thus negating the conclusion that the Canuto and Hsieh model excludes the primordial synthesis of helium.

The products of primordial nucleosynthesis, along with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons, are relics from the early evolution of the Universe whose observations probe the standard model of cosmology and provide windows on new physics beyond the standard models of cosmology and of particle physics. According to the standard, hot big bang cosmology, long before any stars have formed a significant fraction ( ∼ 25%) of the baryonic mass in the Universe should be in the form of helium-4 nuclei. Since current observations of {sup 4}He are restricted to low redshift regions where stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred, an observation of high redshift, prestellar, truly primordial {sup 4}He would constitute a fundamental test of the hot, big bang cosmology. At recombination, long after big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) has ended, the temperature anisotropy spectrum imprinted on the CMB depends on the {sup 4}He abundance through its connection to the electron density and the effect of the electron density on Silk damping. Since the relic abundance of {sup 4}He is relatively insensitive to the universal density of baryons, but is sensitive to a non-standard, early Universe expansion rate, the primordial mass fraction of {sup 4}He, Yp, offers a test of the consistency of the standard models of BBN and the CMB and, provides constraints on non-standard physics. Here, the WMAP seven year data (supplemented by other CMB experiments), which lead to an indirect determination of Yp at high redshift, are compared to the BBN predictions and to the independent, direct observations of {sup 4}He in low redshift, extragalactic HII regions. At present, given the very large uncertainties in the CMB-determined primordial {sup 4}He abundance (as well as for the helium abundances inferred from HII region observations), any differences between the BBN predictions and the CMB observations are small, at a level ∼<1.5σ.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer is a balloon-borne instrument to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background in order to detect the characteristic signature of gravity waves created during an inflationary epoch in the early universe. PIPER combines cold /I.G K\\ optics, 5120 bolometric detectors, and rapid polarization modulation using VPM grids to achieve both high sensitivity and excellent control of systematic errors. I will discuss the current status and plans for the PIPER instrument.

We study the primordial gravitational waves induced by space-space condensate inflation model. For modes that cross the comoving horizon during matter dominated era, we calculate the energy spectrum of gravitational waves. The energy spectrum of gravitational waves for our model has significantly suppressed in the low frequency range. The suppression occurs due to the phase transition during the early evolution of the Universe and depends on model parameter.

Evaporation has been an established technology in the metal finishing industry for many years. In this process, wastewaters containing reusable materials, such as copper, nickel, or chromium compounds are heated, producing a water vapor that is continuously removed and condensed....

The purpose of this measure guideline on evaporative condensers is to provide information on a cost-effective solution for energy and demand savings in homes with cooling loads. This is a prescriptive approach that outlines selection criteria, design and installation procedures, and operation and maintenance best practices. This document has been prepared to provide a process for properly designing, installing, and maintaining evaporative condenser systems as well as understanding the benefits, costs, and tradeoffs.

In the preparation of the gaseous reactant feed to undergo a chemical reaction requiring the presence of steam, the efficiency of overall power utilization is improved by premixing the gaseous reactant feed with water and then heating to evaporate the water in the presence of the gaseous reactant feed, the heating fluid utilized being at a temperature below the boiling point of water at the pressure in the volume where the evaporation occurs.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) requires several nuclear physics inputs and nuclear reaction rates. An up-to-date compilation of direct cross sections of d(d,p)t, d(d,n)3He and 3He(d,p)4He reactions is given, being these ones among the most uncertain bare-nucleus cross sections. An intense experimental effort has been carried on in the last decade to apply the Trojan Horse Method (THM) to study reactions of relevance for the BBN and measure their astrophysical S(E)-factor. The reaction rates and the relative error for the four reactions of interest are then numerically calculated in the temperature ranges of relevance for BBN (0.01primordial nucleosynthesis calculations in order to evaluate their impact on the calculated primordial abundances of D, 3,4He and 7Li. These were compared with the observational primordial abundance estimates in different astrophysical sites. A comparison was also performed with calculations using other reaction rates compilations available in literature.

Observations of metal-poor extragalactic H II regions allow the determination of the primordial helium abundance, Y{sub p}. The He I emissivities are the foundation of the model of the H II region's emission. Porter, Ferland, Storey, and Detisch (2012) have recently published updated He I emissivities based on improved photoionization cross-sections. We incorporate these new atomic data and update our recent Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis of the dataset published by Izotov, Thuan, and Stasi'nska (2007). As before, cuts are made to promote quality and reliability, and only solutions which fit the data within 95% confidence level are used to determine the primordial He abundance. The previously qualifying dataset is almost entirely retained and with strong concordance between the physical parameters. Overall, an upward bias from the new emissivities leads to a decrease in Y{sub p}. In addition, we find a general trend to larger uncertainties in individual objects (due to changes in the emissivities) and an increased variance (due to additional objects included). From a regression to zero metallicity, we determine Y{sub p} = 0.2465 ± 0.0097, in good agreement with the BBN result, Y{sub p} = 0.2485 ± 0.0002, based on the Planck determination of the baryon density. In the future, a better understanding of why a large fraction of spectra are not well fit by the model will be crucial to achieving an increase in the precision of the primordial helium abundance determination.

We study primordial anisotropies generated in the model of gauged hybrid inflation in which the complex waterfall field is charged under a U(1)gauge field. Primordial anisotropies are generated either actively during inflation or from inhomogeneities modulating the surface of end of inflation during waterfall transition. We present a consistent δN mechanism to calculate the anisotropic power spectrum and bispectrum. We show that the primordial anisotropies generated at the surface of end of inflation do not depend on the number of e-folds and therefore do not produce dangerously large anisotropies associated with the IR modes. Furthermore, one can find the parameter space that the anisotropies generated from the surface of end of inflation cancel the anisotropies generated during inflation, therefore relaxing the constrains on model parameters imposed from IR anisotropies. We also show that the gauge field fluctuations induce a red-tilted power spectrum so the averaged power spectrum from the gauge field can change the total power spectrum from blue to red. Therefore, hybrid inflation, once gauged under a U(1) field, can be consistent with the cosmological observations.

We measure primordial alignments for the red galaxies in the sample of eight massive galaxy clusters in the southern sky from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble-Very Large Telescope (CLASH-VLT) Large Programme, at a median redshift of 0.375. We find primordial alignment with about 3σ significance in the four dynamically young clusters, but null detection of primordial alignment in the four highly relaxed clusters. The observed primordial alignment is not dominated by any single one of the four dynamically young clusters, and is primarily due to a population of bright galaxies (Mr < -20.5)residing in the region 300-810 kpc from the cluster centres. For the first time, we point out that the combination of radial alignment and halo alignment can cause fake primordial alignment. Finally, we find that the detected alignment for the dynamically young clusters is real rather than fake primordial alignment.

We consider the stochastic background of gravitational waves produced during the radiation-dominated hot big bang as a constraint on the primordial density perturbation on comoving length scales much smaller than those directly probed by the cosmic microwave background or large-scale structure. We place weak upper bounds on the primordial density perturbation from current data. Future detectors such as BBO and DECIGO will place much stronger constraints on the primordial density perturbation on small scales.

We study primordial gravitational waves produced during inflation in quantum gravity at a Lifshitz point proposed by Horava. Assuming power-counting renormalizability, foliation-preserving diffeomorphism invariance, and the condition of detailed balance, we show that primordial gravitational waves are circularly polarized due to parity violation. The chirality of primordial gravitational waves is a quite robust prediction of quantum gravity at a Lifshitz point which can be tested through observations of cosmic microwave background radiation and stochastic gravitational waves. PMID:19658921

Numerical simulations show the formation of self-gravitating primordial disks during the assembly of the first structures in the Universe, in particular, during the formation of Population III and supermassive stars. Their subsequent evolution is expected to be crucial in determining the mass scale of the first cosmological objects, which depends on the temperature of the gas and dominant cooling mechanism. Here, we derive a one-zone framework to explore the chemical evolution of these disks and show that viscous heating leads to the collisional dissociation of an initially molecular gas. The effect is relevant on scales of 10 AU (1000 AU) for a central mass of 10 M⊙ (104 M⊙) at an accretion rate of 10-1 M⊙ yr-1, and provides a substantial heat input to stabilize the disk. If the gas is initially atomic, it remains atomic during the further evolution and the effect of viscous heating is less significant. The additional thermal support is particularly relevant for the formation of very massive objects, such as the progenitors of the first supermassive black holes. The stabilizing impact of viscous heating thus alleviates the need for strong radiation background as a means of keeping the gas atomic.

Supermassive stars (SMSs) forming via very rapid mass accretion ( M-dot {sub ∗}≳0.1 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}) could be precursors of supermassive black holes observed beyond a redshift of about six. Extending our previous work, here we study the evolution of primordial stars growing under such rapid mass accretion until the stellar mass reaches 10{sup 4–5} M {sub ☉}. Our stellar evolution calculations show that a star becomes supermassive while passing through the 'supergiant protostar' stage, whereby the star has a very bloated envelope and a contracting inner core. The stellar radius increases monotonically with the stellar mass until ≅ 100 AU for M {sub *} ≳ 10{sup 4} M {sub ☉}, after which the star begins to slowly contract. Because of the large radius, the effective temperature is always less than 10{sup 4} K during rapid accretion. The accreting material is thus almost completely transparent to the stellar radiation. Only for M {sub *} ≳ 10{sup 5} M {sub ☉} can stellar UV feedback operate and disturb the mass accretion flow. We also examine the pulsation stability of accreting SMSs, showing that the pulsation-driven mass loss does not prevent stellar mass growth. Observational signatures of bloated SMSs should be detectable with future observational facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope. Our results predict that an inner core of the accreting SMS should suffer from the general relativistic instability soon after the stellar mass exceeds 10{sup 5} M {sub ☉}. An extremely massive black hole should form after the collapse of the inner core.

An evaporation system for aqueous radioactive waste uses standard 30 and 55 gallon drums. Waste solutions form cascading water sprays as they pass over a number of trays arranged in a vertical stack within a drum. Hot dry air is circulated radially of the drum through the water sprays thereby removing water vapor. The system is encased in concrete to prevent exposure to radioactivity. The use of standard 30 and 55 gallon drums permits an inexpensive compact modular design that is readily disposable, thus eliminating maintenance and radiation build-up problems encountered with conventional evaporation systems.

Recent experiments have used forced evaporative cooling to produce Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases. The evaporative cooling process can be optimized to provide the maximum phase-space density with a specified number of atoms remaining. We show that this global optimization is approximately achieved by locally optimizing the cooling efficiency at each instant. We discuss how this method can be implemented, and present the results for our 7Li trap. The predicted behavior of the gas is found to agree well with experiment.

Nanobacteria or living nanovesicles are of great interest to the scientific community because of their dual nature: on the one hand, they appear as primal biosystems originating life; on the other hand, they can cause severe diseases. Their survival as well as their pathogenic potential is apparently linked to a self-synthesized protein-based slime, rich in calcium and phosphate (when available). Here, we provide challenging evidence for the occurrence of nanobacteria in the stratosphere, reflecting a possibly primordial provenance of the slime. An analysis of the slime's biological functions may lead to novel strategies suitable to block adhesion modalities in modern bacterial populations. PMID:15595742

We examine the possibility of positive spectral index of the power spectrum of the primordial tensor perturbation produced during inflation in the light of the detection of the B-mode polarization by the BICEP2 collaboration. We find a blue tilt is in general possible when the slow-roll parameter decays rapidly. We present two known examples in which a positive spectral index for the tensor power spectrum can be obtained. We also briefly discuss other consistency tests for further studies on inflationary dynamics.

We study flavor oscillations in the early Universe, assuming primordial neutrino-antineutrino asymmetries. Including collisions and pair processes in the kinetic equations, we not only estimate the degree of flavor equilibration, but for the first time also kinetic equilibration among neutrinos and with the ambient plasma. Typically, the restrictive big-bang nucleosynthesis bound on the nu{sub e}nu{sub e} asymmetry indeed applies to all flavors as claimed in the previous literature, but fine-tuned initial asymmetries always allow for a large surviving neutrino excess radiation that may show up in precision cosmological data.

There are possibilities to violate symmetries (e.g. parity and rotational invariance) in the primordial cosmological fluctuations. Such symmetry breakings can imprint very rich signatures in late-time phenomena, which may be possible to observe. Especially, Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) will change its face drastically, corresponding to the symmetry-breaking types, since the harmonic-space representation is very sensitive to the statistical, spin and angular dependences of cosmological perturbations. Here, we discuss (1) general responses of CMB to the symmetry breakings, (2) some theoretical models creating interesting CMB signatures, and (3) aspects of the estimation from observational data.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a balloon-borne polarimeter that will measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background to search for evidence for inflation. PIPER will observe more than half of the sky in four frequency bands from 200 to 600 GHz with a beam size of 21 arcminutes at the lowest frequency. PIPER simultaneously measures all four Stokes parameters using four co-aligned 32 by 40 element planar bolometer arrays. We give an instrument overview and report on the current status of the instrument.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a ba1loon-borne instrument designed to search for the faint signature of inflation in the polarized component of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). PIPER will measure the CMB polarization at 4 frequencies (l per flight) using a pair of cryogenic telescopes, one for measuring each of Stokes Q and U in the instrument frame. Each telescope receives both linear orthogonal polarizations in two 32 by 40 element planar arrays that utilize Transition-Edge Sensors (TES). The first element in each telescope is a variable-delay polarization modulator (VPM) that fully modulates the Stokes parameter to which the telescope is sensitive.

We explore the ability of experimental physics to uncover the underlying structure of the gravitational Lagrangian describing inflation. While the observable degeneracy of the inflationary parameter space is large, future measurements of observables beyond the adiabatic and tensor two-point functions, such as non-gaussianity or isocurvature modes, might reduce this degeneracy. We show that, even in the absence of such observables, the range of possible inflaton potentials can be reduced with a precision measurement of the tensor spectral index, as might be possible with a direct detection of primordial gravitational waves. PMID:21668140

Liouville gravity can be used to precisely model features of 3+1 dimensional cosmology in a simplified 1+1d setting. We study primordial fluctuations in a generally covariant extension of Liouville theory, in the context of single field inflation. The scale invariant spectrum of scalar curvature perturbations is exhibited, and their three-point correlation function is computed in the slow roll approximation. We recover Maldacena's consistency relation for the three-point function, which in this context depends on a global shift symmetry of extended Liouville theory.

Liouville gravity can be used to precisely model features of 3+1 dimensional cosmology in a simplified 1+1d setting. We study primordial fluctuations in a generally covariant extension of Liouville theory, in the context of single field inflation. The scale invariant spectrum of scalar curvature perturbations is exhibited, and their three-point correlation function is computed in the slow roll approximation. We recover Maldacena's consistency relation for the three-point function, which in this context depends on a global shift symmetry of extended Liouville theory.

We study flavor oscillations in the early Universe, assuming primordial neutrino-antineutrino asymmetries. Including collisions and pair processes in the kinetic equations, we not only estimate the degree of flavor equilibration, but for the first time also kinetic equilibration among neutrinos and with the ambient plasma. Typically, the restrictive big-bang nucleosynthesis bound on the nu_{e}nu[over]_{e} asymmetry indeed applies to all flavors as claimed in the previous literature, but fine-tuned initial asymmetries always allow for a large surviving neutrino excess radiation that may show up in precision cosmological data. PMID:19658994

The creation of large scale magnetic fields is studied in an inflationary universe where electrodynamics is assumed to be nonlinear. After inflation ends electrodynamics becomes linear and thus the description of reheating and the subsequent radiation dominated stage are unaltered. The nonlinear regime of electrodynamics is described by Lagrangians having a power-law dependence on one of the invariants of the electromagnetic field. It is found that there is a range of parameters for which primordial magnetic fields of cosmologically interesting strengths can be created.

Synthetic forsterite (Mg2SiO4) was partially evaporated in vacuum for various durations and at different temperatures. The residual charges obtained when molten Mg2SiO4 was evaporated to 12 percent of its initial mass were enriched in heavy isotopes by about 20, 30, and 15 per mil/amu for O, Mg, and Si, respectively, whereas solid forsterite evaporated to a similar residual mass fraction showed negligible fractionations. These results imply that calcium and aluminum-rich refractory inclusions in carbonaceous chondrites must have been at least partially molten in the primordial solar nebula if the observed large mass fractionation effects were caused by evaporation processes in the nebula.

We update the forecasts for the measurement of the tensor-to-scalar ratio r for various ground-based experiments (AdvACT, CLASS, Keck/BICEP3, Simons Array, SPT-3G), balloons (EBEX 10k and Spider) and satellites (CMBPol, COrE and LiteBIRD), taking into account the recent Planck data on polarized dust and using a component separation method. The forecasts do not change significantly with respect to previous estimates when at least three frequencies are available, provided foregrounds can be accurately described by few parameters. We argue that a theoretically motivated goal for future experiments is r~2×10-3, and that this is achievable if the noise is reduced to ~1 μK-arcmin and lensing is reduced to 10% in power. We study the constraints experiments will be able to put on the frequency and l-dependence of the tensor signal as a check of its primordial origin. Futuristic ground-based and balloon experiments can have good constraints on these parameters, even for r~2×10-3. For the same value of r, satellites will marginally be able to detect the presence of the recombination bump, the most distinctive feature of the primordial signal.

In mice, primordial germ cells migrate into the genital ridges by embryonic day 13.5 (E13.5), where they are then subjected to a sex-specific fate with female and male primordial germ cells undergoing mitotic arrest and meiosis, respectively. However, the sex-specific basis of primordial germ cell differentiation is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the sex-specific features of mouse primordial germ cells. We performed RNA-sequencing (seq) of E13.5 female and male mouse primordial germ cells using next-generation sequencing. We identified 651 and 428 differentially expressed transcripts (>2-fold, P < 0.05) in female and male primordial germ cells, respectively. Of these, many transcription factors were identified. Gene ontology and network analysis revealed differing functions of the identified female- and male-specific genes that were associated with primordial germ cell acquisition of sex-specific properties required for differentiation into germ cells. Furthermore, DNA methylation and ChIP-seq analysis of histone modifications showed that hypomethylated gene promoter regions were bound with H3K4me3 and H3K27me3. Our global transcriptome data showed that in mice, primordial germ cells are decisively assigned to a sex-specific differentiation program by E13.5, which is necessary for the development of vital germ cells. PMID:26700643

A variable speed of light (VSL) cosmology is described in which the causal mechanism of generating primordial perturbations is achieved by varying the speed of light in a primordial epoch. This yields an alternative to inflation for explaining the formation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large scale structure (LSS) of the universe. The initial value horizon and flatness problems in cosmology are solved. The model predicts primordial scalar and tensor fluctuation spectral indices n_s=0.96 and n_t=- 0.04, respectively. We make use of the δ {N} formalism to identify signatures of primordial nonlinear fluctuations, and this allows the VSL model to be distinguished from inflationary models. In particular, we find that the parameter f_NL=5 in the variable speed of light cosmology. The value of the parameter g_NL evolves during the primordial era and shows a running behavior.

Theoretical model developed to analyze behavior of both dense and dilute clusters of evaporating liquid drops in gas flows. Particularly useful in search for methods of controlling evaporation, ignition, and combustion of fuel sprays.

Vehicle evaporative emissions are now modeled in EPA’s MOVES according to physical processes, permeation, tank vapor venting, liquid leaks, and refueling emissions. With this update, the following improvements are being incorporated into MOVES evaporative emissions methodology, a...

VOx thin films on glass were obtained by thermal evaporation of V205, powder. The structural investigations were carried out with the use of X-ray diffractometer. The electrical properties of the film were examined by means of temperature measurements of resistivity for the samples heat-treated in various conditions. Optical transmission and reflection spectra of VOX films of various composition showed the influence of the heat treatment.

A falling film evaporator including a vertically oriented pipe heated exteriorly by a steam jacket and interiorly by a finned steam tube, all heating surfaces of the pipe and steam tube being formed of a material wet by water such as stainless steel, and packing within the pipe consisting of Raschig rings formed of a material that is not wet by water such as polyvinylidene fluoride.

An evaporative heat exchanger having parallel plates that define alternating dry and wet passages. A water reservoir is located below the plates and is connected to a water distribution system. Water from the water distribution system flows through the wet passages and wets the surfaces of the plates that form the wet passages. Air flows through the dry passages, mixes with air below the plates, and flows into the wet passages before exiting through the top of the wet passages.

Black holes pose a serious problem in cyclic or oscillating cosmology. It is speculated that, in the cyclic universe with phantom turnarounds, black holes will be torn apart by phantom energy prior to turnaround before they can create any problems. In this paper, using the mechanism of phantom accretion onto black holes, we find that black holes do not disappear before phantom turnaround. But the remanent black holes will not cause any problems due to Hawking evaporation.

A water membrane evaporator (WME) has been conceived and tested as an alternative to the contamination-sensitive and corrosion-prone evaporators currently used for dissipating heat from space vehicles. The WME consists mainly of the following components: An outer stainless-steel screen that provides structural support for the components mentioned next; Inside and in contact with the stainless-steel screen, a hydrophobic membrane that is permeable to water vapor; Inside and in contact with the hydrophobic membrane, a hydrophilic membrane that transports the liquid feedwater to the inner surface of the hydrophobic membrane; Inside and in contact with the hydrophilic membrane, an annular array of tubes through which flows the spacecraft coolant carrying the heat to be dissipated; and An inner exclusion tube that limits the volume of feedwater in the WME. In operation, a pressurized feedwater reservoir is connected to the volume between the exclusion tube and the coolant tubes. Feedwater fills the volume, saturates the hydrophilic membrane, and is retained by the hydrophobic membrane. The outside of the WME is exposed to space vacuum. Heat from the spacecraft coolant is conducted through the tube walls and the water-saturated hydrophilic membrane to the liquid/vapor interface at the hydrophobic membrane, causing water to evaporate to space. Makeup water flows into the hydrophilic membrane through gaps between the coolant tubes.

Inflation produces a primordial spectrum of gravity waves in addition to the density perturbations which seed structure formation. We compute the signature of these gravity waves in the large scale shear field. The shear can be divided into a gradient mode (G or E) and a curl mode (C or B). The latter is produced only by gravity waves, so the observations of a nonzero curl mode could be seen as evidence for inflation. We find that the expected signal from inflation is small, peaking on the largest scales at l(l+1)C(l)/2pi<10(-11) at l=2 and falling rapidly thereafter. Even for an all-sky deep survey, this signal would be below noise at all multipoles. PMID:12906468

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a balloon-borne experiment designed to search for the polarized imprint of gravitational waves from cosmic inflation. The discovery of such a signal would provide direct evidence for inflation, and its characterization would provide a means to explore energy scales orders of magnitude larger than any conceivable particle accelerator. PIPER will consist of two cryogenic telescopes-one for each of the Q and U Stokes parameters. Each will use a variable-delay polarization modulator (VPM) as its first element. This architecture is designed to minimize both T->B and E->B systematics. The detectors will be four 32x40 arrays of BUG detectors, utilizing transition-edge sensors and time-domain multiplexing. Each flight will observe approximately 25% of the sky at a single frequency. Additional flights will increase the frequency coverage.

Laboratory data are needed to understand the formation of organics in cometary and precometary materials and for deciding on the fate of the volatiles. Appropriate experiments were described in the talk at Milipitas. Because of its importance for the comet sample return mission, I discuss here the relevance of this data for predicting the thickness, nature, and ability to survive of the cosmic-ray produced primordial comet mantle ('crust'). That part of the mantle which becomes predominantly refractory is approx. 30 gm/sq cm thick. The tensile strength of this outer mantle is such that it might survive the comet's entrance into the inner solar system. In addition, important modifications to the ices occur to depths approx. 300 gm/cu cm. Based on this it is expected that a deep probe is needed to obtain minimally altered material.

Abstract Physiological polyamines are ubiquitous polycations with pleiotropic biochemical activities, including regulation of gene expression, cell proliferation and modulation of cell signalling. Reports that the polyamines with cytoprotective activities were induced by diverse stresses raised the hypothesis that physiological polyamines may play a role in inducing stress response. In a wide range of organisms, physiological polyamines were not only induced by diverse stresses, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), heat, ultraviolet (UV) and psychiatric stress but were able to confer beneficial effects for survival. Recent biochemical and genetic evidences show that polyamines can function as an ROS scavenger, acid tolerance factor and chemical chaperone, and positive regulators for expression of stress response genes which may explain their protective functions against diverse stresses. Taken together, these data suggest that physiological polyamines can function as primordial stress molecules in bacteria, plants and mammals, and may play an essential role in regulation of pathogen-host interactions. PMID:17760833

Three of the best determinations of the primordial helium abundance (Yp) are those obtained from low metallicity HII regions by Aver, Olive, Porter, & Skillman (2013); Izotov, Thuan, & Guseva (2014); and Peimbert, Peimbert, & Luridiana (2007). In this poster we update the Yp determination by Peimbert et al. taking into account, among other aspects, recent advances in the determination of the He atomic physical parameters, the temperature structure, the collisional effects of high temperatures on the Balmer lines, as well as the effect of H and He bound-bound absorption.We compare our results with those of Aver et al. and Izotov et al. and point out possible explanations for the differences among the three determinations. We also compare our results with those obtained with the Plank satellite considering recent measurements of the neutron mean life; this comparison has implications on the determination of the number of light neutrino families.

Microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type 1 (MOPD1) is an uncommon cause of microcephaly and intrauterine growth retardation in a newborn. Early identifying features include but are not limited to sloping forehead, micrognathia, sparse hair, including of eyebrows and short limbs. Immediate radiological findings may include partial or complete agenesis of the corpus callosum, interhemispheric cyst and shallow acetabula leading to dislocation. Genetic testing displaying a mutation in RNU4ATAC gene is necessary for definitive diagnosis. Early identification is important as MOPD1 is an autosomal recessive condition and could present in subsequent pregnancies. The purpose of this case is to both identify and describe some common physical findings related to MOPD1. We present a case of MOPD1 in a girl born to non-consanguineous parents that was distinct for subglottic stenosis and laryngeal cleft. PMID:27312855

A complete, locally supersymmetric model for the early universe is reviewed. It begins with primordial inflation just after the Planck time. The (nontrivial) breaking of SU(5) is discussed in detail, with specific emphasis on baryon generation at T about 0(10 to the 7th)-GeV and monopole suppression (no longer accomplished by inflation). Gravitational effects are taken into account through N = 1 supergravity, and play an essential role. What one is left with is a problem-free scenario containing all the benefits of Guth's (1980) original inflation, as well as density perturbations of a desirable magnitude for the formation of galaxies, a large baryon-to-photon ratio, and a possibly observable flux of magnetic monopoles. By inserting only two scales, the Planck scale and the supersymmetry breaking scale, both the weak and GUT scales are produced.

The origin of life and the origin of the Universe are among the most important problems of science and they might be inextricably linked. Hydro-gravitational-dynamics cosmology predicts hydrogen-helium gas planets in clumps as the dark matter of galaxies, with millions of planets per star. This unexpected prediction is supported by quasar microlensing of a galaxy and a flood of new data from space telescopes. Supernovae from stellar over-accretion of planets produce the chemicals (C, N, O, P, etc.) and abundant liquid-water domains required for first life and the means for wide scattering of life prototypes. Life originated following the plasma-to-gas transition between 2 and 20 Myr after the big bang, while planetary core oceans were between critical and freezing temperatures, and interchanges of material between planets constituted essentially a cosmological primordial soup. Images from optical, radio and infrared space telescopes suggest life on Earth was neither first nor inevitable.

Infertility is a condition that occurs very frequently and understanding what defines normal fertility is crucial to helping patients. Causes of infertility are numerous and the treatment often does not lead to desired pregnancy especially when there is a lack of functional gametes. In humans, the primordial germ cell (PGC) is the primary undifferentiated stem cell type that will differentiate towards gametes: spermatozoa or oocytes. With the development of stem cell biology and differentiation protocols, PGC can be obtained from pluripotent stem cells providing a new therapeutic possibility to treat infertile couples. Recent studies demonstrated that viable mouse pups could be obtained from in vitro differentiated stem cells suggesting that translation of these results to human is closer. Therefore, the aim of this review is to summarize current knowledge about PGC indicating the perspective of their use in both research and medical application for the treatment of infertility. PMID:26635880

Many models of new physics including variants of supersymmetry predict metastable long-lived particles that can decay during or after primordial nucleosynthesis, releasing significant amounts of nonthermal energy. The hadronic energy injection in these decays leads to the formation of ⁹Be via the chain of nonequilibrium transformations: Energy(h)→T, ³He→⁶He, ⁶Li→⁹Be. We calculate the efficiency of this transformation and show that if the injection happens at cosmic times of a few hours the release of O(10 MeV) per baryon can be sufficient for obtaining a sizable ⁹Be abundance. The absence of a plateau structure in the ⁹Be/H abundance down to a O(10⁻¹⁴) level allows one to use beryllium as a robust constraint on new physics models with decaying or annihilating particles. PMID:21517297

The discovery of the viroid in 1971, which initiated the third major expansion of the biosphere towards smaller living entities-after discovery of the "subvisual" microorganisms in 1675 and that of the "submicroscopic" viruses in 1892-has been officially endorsed by the International Committee on Virus Taxonomy as a new order called subviral agents.In 1989, I proposed that, based on their respective molecular properties, viroids are more plausible "living fossils" of the hypothetical RNA World (widely assumed to have existed prior to the evolution of DNA or proteins) than are intron-derived RNAs, which were, at that time, suggested as putative survivors. There were few citations of my proposal-and virtually none of viroids-beyond plant virology unil 1994, when Cheles-Flores critically examined the hypothesis and pointed out a serious difficulty, as well as a process by which this difficulty could be overcome. In 2013, when investigations by Koonin and Dolja revealed that of extant RNAs, viroids "strikingly" display some of the molecular properties posited for the earliest evolving, selfish RNAs (primordial RNAs), but, because extant organisms, aside from higher plants, appear not to harbor viroids, they cannot be regarded as primordial fossils, but appear to have evolved post LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor). Here, I review whether some evidence nevertheless is compatible with the original postulate of the 1989 hypothesis. My analysis reveals no unequivocal evidence for an ancient origin of viroids, but suggests, alternatively, that viroids may have evolved de novo more recently, probably by novel processes similar to those suggested by each reviewer.These results are important, because they help illuminate a little understood period of abiogenesis--after the abiotic synthesis of life's chemical building blocks, which is, in principle, understood, and before the evolution of DNA and proteins in the late RNA World. PMID:27016066

Evaporation dynamics of mosses is a critical process in boreal and arctic systems and represents a key uncertainty in hydrology and climate models. At this point, moss evaporation is not well quantified at the plot or landscape scale. Relative to bare soil or litter evaporation, moss evaporation can be challenging to predict because the water flux is not isolated to the moss surface. Evaporation can originate from nearly 10 cm below the surface. Some mosses can wick moisture from even deeper than 10 cm, which subsequently evaporates. The goal of this study was to use field measurements to quantify the moss evaporation dynamics in a coniferous forest relative to bare ground or litter evaporation dynamics in a deciduous forest in Interior Alaska. Measurements were made in two ecosystem types within the boreal forest of Interior Alaska: a deciduous forest devoid of moss and a coniferous forest with a thick moss layer. A small clear chamber was attached to a LiCor 840 infrared gas analyzer in a closed loop system with a low flow rate. Water fluxes were measured for ~ 90 seconds on each plot in dry and wet soil and moss conditions. Additional measurements included: soil temperature, soil moisture, air temperature, barometric pressure, dew point, relative humidity, and wind speed. Thermal infrared images were also captured in congruence with water flux measurements to determine skin temperature. We found that the moss evaporation rate was over 100% greater than the soil evaporation rate (0.057 g/min vs. 0.024 g/min), and evaporation rates in both systems were most strongly driven by relative humidity and surface temperature. Surface temperature was lower at the birch site than the black spruce site because trees shade the surface beneath the birch. High fluxes associated with high water content were sustained for a longer period of time over the mosses compared to the bare soil. The thermal IR data showed that skin temperature lagged the evaporation flux, such that the

We discuss the interior of a black hole in quantum gravity, in which black holes form and evaporate unitarily. The interior spacetime appears in the sense of complementarity because of special features revealed by the microscopic degrees of freedom when viewed from a semiclassical standpoint. The relation between quantum mechanics and the equivalence principle is subtle, but they are still consistent. PMID:26047218

A tubeless evaporation process which has the potential to combine the advantage of both evaporation and freezing processes, without their disadvantages is being developed. The TEP is capable of concentrating process solutions of such things as sugar, caustic soda, salt, sodium sulfate, black liquor from the pulp and paper industry, cooling tower blowdown, ''spent'' pickling liquor (sulfuric acid) from the steel industry, and nitric acid with potential energy savings of half to three-quarters of the energy required by conventional evaporators, with about half of the capital and maintenance cost. It has similar potential for the production of fresh water from seawater. The process uses working fluids (WF's) at their freezing point to effect direct contact heat exchange. The purpose of this project was to find additional and lower cost WF's in the laboratory, to obtain sizing information for the major equipment for an economic evaluation and a pilot plant design in a bench scale plant, and to perform the economic evaluation, and the pilot plant design and cost estimate. 6 refs., 37 figs., 7 tabs.

It was recently shown that black holes could be bouncing stars as a consequence of quantum gravity. We investigate the astrophysical signals implied by this hypothesis, focusing on primordialblack holes. We consider different possible bounce times and study the integrated diffuse emission.

In models with extra dimensions, a black hole evaporates both in the bulk and on the visible brane, where standard model fields live. The exact emissivities of each particle species are needed to determine how the black hole decay proceeds. We compute and discuss the absorption cross sections, the relative emissivities, and the total power output of all known fields in the evaporation phase. Graviton emissivity is highly enhanced as the spacetime dimensionality increases. Therefore, a black hole loses a significant fraction of its mass in the bulk. This result has important consequences for the phenomenology of black holes in models with extra dimensions and black hole detection in particle colliders. PMID:16606074

In the study of normal evaporation, it is assumed that the evaporating alloy is homogeneous, that the vapor is instantly removed, and that the alloy follows Raoult's law. The differential equation of normal evaporation relating the evaporating time to the final solute concentration is given and solved for several important special cases. Uses of the derived equations are exemplified with a Ni-Al alloy and some binary iron alloys. The accuracy of the predicted results are checked by analyses of actual experimental data on Fe-Ni and Ni-Cr alloys evaporated at 1600 C, and also on the vacuum purification of beryllium. These analyses suggest that the normal evaporation equations presented here give satisfactory results that are accurate to within an order of magnitude of the correct values, even for some highly concentrated solutions. Limited diffusion and the resultant surface solute depletion or enrichment appear important in the extension of this normal evaporation approach.

We discuss the issue of how precisely we can measure the primordial power spectrum by using future observations of 21 cm fluctuations and cosmic microwave background (CMB). For this purpose, we investigate projected constraints on the quantities characterizing primordial power spectrum: the spectral index n{sub s}, its running α{sub s} and even its higher order running β{sub s}. We show that future 21 cm observations in combinations with CMB would accurately measure above mentioned observables of primordial power spectrum. We also discuss its implications to some explicit inflationary models.

Inflation predicts primordial scalar perturbations with a nearly scale-invariant spectrum and a spectral index approximately unity [the Harrison-Zel'dovich (HZ) spectrum]. The first important step for inflationary cosmology is to check the consistency of the HZ primordial spectrum with current observations. Recent analyses have claimed that a HZ primordial spectrum is excluded at more than 99% c.l. Here we show that the HZ spectrum is only marginally disfavored if one considers a more general reionization scenario. Data from the Planck mission will settle the issue.

This article examines how breaking a Lorentz-invariant description of nature at tiny space-time intervals would affect the non-Gaussian character of the pattern of primordial perturbations left by inflation. We specifically study a set of irrelevant operators that preserve the spatial symmetries of the usual inflationary background. The non-Gaussian component in the primordial fluctuations can be much larger than the usual, small, inflationary prediction and can thus lead to much stronger constraints on the role of 'trans-Planckian' physics in inflation than those from the measurements of the primordial power spectrum.

the central black hole is BPS in the extremal limit, then the potential is flat and so there is no barrier to the emission of probes. If the central black hole is non-BPS in the extremal limit, then there is a barrier to emission and we compute the decay rate, which depends both on the charge of the central black hole and the charges of the emitted black holes. Finally, we consider the possibility that an extremal black hole, the end-point of the evolution of a non-extremal black hole through evaporation, may itself split into a multi-centered black hole solution through quantum tunneling, via a gravitational instanton analogous to the instanton for the symmetric double well in elementary quantum mechanics. We find a gravitational instanton that connects two vacuum states: one state corresponding to a single-centered extremal Reissner-Nordstrom (ERN) black hole configuration, and another state corresponding to a multi-centered ERN configuration. We evaluate the Euclidean action for this instanton and find that the amplitude for the tunneling process is equal to half the difference in entropy between the initial and final configurations.

Liquids, such as juices, milk, molten metal and the like are concentrated by forming uniformly-sized, small droplets in a precision droplet forming assembly and deploying the droplets in free fall downwardly as a central column within an evacuated column with cool walls. A portion of the solvent evaporates. The vapor flows to the wall, condenses, and usually flows down the wall as a film to condensate collector and drain. The vertical column of freely falling droplets enters the splash guard. The condensate can be collected, sent to other towers or recycled.

The total volatile inventory of Mars has been modeled using meteoritic and presumed primordial abundances in the early solar system. Evidence is presented which indicates that the elemental abundances of the noble gases on Earth and Mars are similar, and their ratios are comparable to those in average carbonaceous chondrites with the exception of xenon and krypton. In order to account for presently observed variations in gas abundances, two primordial sources were used. One was the solar composition similar to the solar wind, and the other of carbonaceous grains that were the source for trace exotic components. For Mars, a model in which the early, high solar EUV flux with continued hydrogen production by differentiation results in mass fractionation of the primordial atmosphere, early depletion of xenon, and later depletion of gases lighter than krypton. The result is that the primordial Mars water inventory may have been on the order of 20 to 30 km if spread over the planet.

Background Primordial follicle assembly is the process by which ovarian primordial follicles are formed. During follicle assembly oocyte nests break down and a layer of pre-granulosa cells surrounds individual oocytes to form primordial follicles. The pool of primordial follicles formed is the source of oocytes for ovulation during a female’s reproductive life. Results The current study utilized a systems approach to detect all genes that are differentially expressed in response to seven different growth factor and hormone treatments known to influence (increase or decrease) primordial follicle assembly in a neonatal rat ovary culture system. One novel factor, basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2), was experimentally determined to inhibit follicle assembly. The different growth factor and hormone treatments were all found to affect similar physiological pathways, but each treatment affected a unique set of differentially expressed genes (signature gene set). A gene bionetwork analysis identified gene modules of coordinately expressed interconnected genes and it was found that different gene modules appear to accomplish distinct tasks during primordial follicle assembly. Predictions of physiological pathways important to follicle assembly were validated using ovary culture experiments in which ERK1/2 (MAPK1) activity was increased. Conclusions A number of the highly interconnected genes in these gene networks have previously been linked to primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) and polycystic ovarian disease syndrome (PCOS). Observations have identified novel factors and gene networks that regulate primordial follicle assembly. This systems biology approach has helped elucidate the molecular control of primordial follicle assembly and provided potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of ovarian disease. PMID:23875758

The role of reservoir surface evaporation in river/reservoir water budgets and water management is explored using a modeling system that combines historical natural hydrology with current conditions of water resources development and management. The long-term mean evaporation from the 3415 reservoirs in the Texas water rights permit system is estimated to be 7.53 billion m3/year, which is equivalent to 61% of total agricultural or 126% of total municipal water use in the state during the year 2010. Evaporation varies with the hydrologic conditions governing reservoir surface areas and evaporation rates. Annual statewide total evaporation volumes associated with exceedance probabilities of 75%, 50%, and 25% are 7.07, 7.47, and 7.95 billion m3/year, respectively. Impacts of evaporation are greatest during extended severe droughts that govern water supply capabilities.

The universe is magnetized on all scales probed so far. On the largest scales, galaxies and galaxy clusters host magnetic fields at the micro Gauss level coherent on scales up to ten kpc. Recent observational evidence suggests that even the intergalactic medium in voids could host a weak ∼ 10‑16 Gauss magnetic field, coherent on Mpc scales. An intriguing possibility is that these observed magnetic fields are a relic from the early universe, albeit one which has been subsequently amplified and maintained by a dynamo in collapsed objects. We review here the origin, evolution and signatures of primordial magnetic fields. After a brief summary of magnetohydrodynamics in the expanding universe, we turn to magnetic field generation during inflation and phase transitions. We trace the linear and nonlinear evolution of the generated primordial fields through the radiation era, including viscous effects. Sensitive observational signatures of primordial magnetic fields on the cosmic microwave background, including current constraints from Planck, are discussed. After recombination, primordial magnetic fields could strongly influence structure formation, especially on dwarf galaxy scales. The resulting signatures on reionization, the redshifted 21 cm line, weak lensing and the Lyman-α forest are outlined. Constraints from radio and γ-ray astronomy are summarized. Astrophysical batteries and the role of dynamos in reshaping the primordial field are briefly considered. The review ends with some final thoughts on primordial magnetic fields.

Ovarian primordial follicles are critical for female reproduction and comprise a finite pool of gametes arrested in development. A systems biology approach was used to identify regulatory gene networks essential for primordial follicle development. Transcriptional responses to eight different growth factors known to influence primordial follicles were used to construct a bionetwork of regulatory genes involved in rat primordial follicle development. Over 1,500 genes were found to be regulated by the various growth factors and a network analysis identified critical gene modules involved in a number of signaling pathways and cellular processes. A set of 55 genes was identified as potential critical regulators of these gene modules, and a sub-network associated with development was determined. Within the network two previously identified regulatory genes were confirmed (i.e., Pdgfa and Fgfr2) and a new factor was identified, connective tissue growth factor (CTGF). CTGF was tested in ovarian organ cultures and found to stimulate primordial follicle development. Therefore, the relevant gene network associated with primordial follicle development was validated and the critical genes and pathways involved in this process were identified. This is one of the first applications of network analysis to a normal developmental process. These observations provide insights into potential therapeutic targets for preventing ovarian disease and promoting female reproduction. PMID:20661288

The universe is magnetized on all scales probed so far. On the largest scales, galaxies and galaxy clusters host magnetic fields at the micro Gauss level coherent on scales up to ten kpc. Recent observational evidence suggests that even the intergalactic medium in voids could host a weak ∼ 10(-16) Gauss magnetic field, coherent on Mpc scales. An intriguing possibility is that these observed magnetic fields are a relic from the early universe, albeit one which has been subsequently amplified and maintained by a dynamo in collapsed objects. We review here the origin, evolution and signatures of primordial magnetic fields. After a brief summary of magnetohydrodynamics in the expanding universe, we turn to magnetic field generation during inflation and phase transitions. We trace the linear and nonlinear evolution of the generated primordial fields through the radiation era, including viscous effects. Sensitive observational signatures of primordial magnetic fields on the cosmic microwave background, including current constraints from Planck, are discussed. After recombination, primordial magnetic fields could strongly influence structure formation, especially on dwarf galaxy scales. The resulting signatures on reionization, the redshifted 21 cm line, weak lensing and the Lyman-α forest are outlined. Constraints from radio and γ-ray astronomy are summarized. Astrophysical batteries and the role of dynamos in reshaping the primordial field are briefly considered. The review ends with some final thoughts on primordial magnetic fields. PMID:27243368

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) is an Explorer-class mission to map the absolute intensity and linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background and diffuse astrophysical foregrounds over the full sky from frequencies 30 GHz to 6 THz (I cm to 50 I-tm wavelength). PIXIE uses a polarizing Michelson interferometer with 2.7 K optics to measure the difference spectrum between two orthogonal linear polarizations from two co-aligned beams. Either input can view either the sky or a temperature-controlled absolute reference blackbody calibrator. The multimoded optics and high etendu provide sensitivity comparable to kilo-pixel focal plane arrays, but with greatly expanded frequency coverage while using only 4 detectors total. PIXIE builds on the highly successful COBEIFIRAS design by adding large-area polarization-sensitive detectors whose fully symmetric optics are maintained in thermal equilibrium with the CMB. The highly symmetric nulled design provides redundant rejection of major sources of systematic uncertainty. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r much less than 10(exp -3). PIXIE will also return a rich data set constraining physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology, reionization, and large-scale structure to the local interstellar medium. Keywords: cosmic microwave background, polarization, FTS, bolometer

We examine the potential of polarization bispectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain primordial magnetic fields (PMFs). We compute all possible bispectra between temperature and polarization anisotropies sourced by PMFs and show that they are weakly correlated with well-known local-type and secondary ISW-lensing bispectra. From a Fisher analysis it is found that, owing to E-mode bispectra, in a cosmic-variance-limited experiment the expected uncertainty in the amplitude of magnetized bispectra is 80% improved in comparison with an analysis in terms of temperature auto-bispectrum alone. In the Planck or the proposed PRISM experiment cases, we will be able to measure PMFs with strength 2.6 or 2.2 nG. PMFs also generate bispectra involving B-mode polarization, due to tensor-mode dependence. We also find that the B-mode bispectrum can reduce the uncertainty more drastically and hence PMFs comparable to or less than 1 nG may be measured in a PRISM-like experiment.

We study the asymmetric primordial fluctuations in a model of inflation in which translational invariance is broken by a domain wall. We calculate the corrections to the power spectrum of curvature perturbations; they are anisotropic and contain dipole, quadrupole, and higher multipoles with non-trivial scale-dependent amplitudes. Inspired by observations of these multipole asymmetries in terms of two-point correlations and variance in real space, we demonstrate that this model can explain the observed anomalous power asymmetry of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky, including its characteristic feature that the dipole dominates over higher multipoles. We test the viability of the model and place approximate constraints on its parameters by using observational values of dipole, quadrupole, and octopole amplitudes of the asymmetry measured by a local-variance estimator. We find that a configuration of the model in which the CMB sphere does not intersect the domain wall during inflation provides a good fit to the data. We further derive analytic expressions for the corrections to the CMB temperature covariance matrix, or angular power spectra, which can be used in future statistical analysis of the model in spherical harmonic space.

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are precursors of germline cells. Although avian PGCs have been used to produce transgenic birds, their characteristics largely remain unknown. In this study, we isolated PGCs from chicken embryos at various developmental stages and analyzed the gene expression. Using the expression of stage-specific embryonic antigen-1 (SSEA-1) as a marker of chicken PGCs, we purified PGCs from embryos by fluorescence-activated cell sorting after incubation for 2.5–8.5 days. The number of SSEA-1+ cells was almost unchanged during days 2.5–8.5 of incubation in females but continuously increased in male. Expression of several genes, including Blimp1, SOX2, and CXCR4, was observed in SSEA-1+ cells but not in SSEA-1− cells in both female and male embryos. Quantitative reverse-transcription PCR analysis revealed that the expression of CXCR4, a chemokine receptor essential for migration of PGCs from the bloodstream to the gonads, was reduced after the circulating PGC stage (day 2.5). PMID:19003166

We study the implications of deformed quantum algebras for the generation of primordial perturbations from slow-roll inflation. Specifically, we assume that the quantum commutator of the inflaton's amplitude and momentum in Fourier space gets modified at energies above some threshold M{sub *}. We show that when the commutator is modified to be a function of the momentum only, the problem of solving for the post-inflationary spectrum of fluctuations is formally equivalent to solving a one-dimensional Schr and quot;odinger equation with a time dependent potential. Depending on the class of modification, we find results either close to or significantly different from nearly scale invariant spectra. For the former case, the power spectrum is characterized by step-like behaviour at some pivot scale, where the magnitude of the jump is O(H{sup 2}/M{sub *}{sup 2}). (H is the inflationary Hubble parameter.) We use our calculated power spectra to generate predictions for the cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations, hence demonstrating that certain types of deformations are incompatible with current observations.

We analyze the possibility of primordial magnetic field amplification by a stochastic large scale kinematic dynamo during reheating. We consider a charged scalar field minimally coupled to gravity. During inflation this field is assumed to be in its vacuum state. At the transition to reheating the state of the field changes to a many particle/anti-particle state. We characterize that state as a fluid flow of zero mean velocity but with a stochastic velocity field. We compute the scale-dependent Reynolds number Re(k), and the characteristic times for decay of turbulence, t{sub d} and pair annihilation t{sub a}, finding t{sub a} << t{sub d}. We calculate the rms value of the kinetic helicity of the flow over a scale L and show that it does not vanish. We use this result to estimate the amplification factor of a seed field from the stochastic kinematic dynamo equations. Although this effect is weak, it shows that the evolution of the cosmic magnetic field from reheating to galaxy formation may well be more complex than as dictated by simple flux freezing.

We study the implications of deformed quantum algebras for the generation of primordial perturbations from slow-roll inflation. Specifically, we assume that the quantum commutator of the inflaton's amplitude and momentum in Fourier space gets modified at energies above some threshold Mstar. We show that when the commutator is modified to be a function of the momentum only, the problem of solving for the post-inflationary spectrum of fluctuations is formally equivalent to solving a one-dimensional Schr&quotodinger equation with a time dependent potential. Depending on the class of modification, we find results either close to or significantly different from nearly scale invariant spectra. For the former case, the power spectrum is characterized by step-like behaviour at some pivot scale, where the magnitude of the jump is Script O(H2/Mstar2). (H is the inflationary Hubble parameter.) We use our calculated power spectra to generate predictions for the cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations, hence demonstrating that certain types of deformations are incompatible with current observations.

We study cosmological tensor perturbations on a quantized background within the hybrid quantization approach. In particular, we consider a flat, homogeneous and isotropic spacetime and small tensor inhomogeneities on it. We truncate the action to second order in the perturbations. The dynamics is ruled by a homogeneous scalar constraint. We carry out a canonical transformation in the system where the Hamiltonian for the tensor perturbations takes a canonical form. The new tensor modes now admit a standard Fock quantization with a unitary dynamics. We then combine this representation with a generic quantum scheme for the homogeneous sector. We adopt a Born-Oppenheimer ansatz for the solutions to the constraint operator, previously employed to study the dynamics of scalar inhomogeneities. We analyze the approximations that allow us to recover, on the one hand, a Schrödinger equation similar to the one emerging in the dressed metric approach and, on the other hand, the ones necessary for the effective evolution equations of these primordial tensor modes within the hybrid approach to be valid. Finally, we consider loop quantum cosmology as an example where these quantization techniques can be applied and compare with other approaches.

Mammalian primordial germ cells (PGCs) are unipotent progenitors of the gametes. Nonetheless, they can give rise directly to pluripotent stem cells in vitro or during teratocarcinogenesis. This conversion is inconsistent, however, and has been difficult to study. Here, we delineate requirements for efficient resetting of pluripotency in culture. We demonstrate that in defined conditions, routinely 20% of PGCs become EG cells. Conversion can occur from the earliest specified PGCs. The entire process can be tracked from single cells. It is driven by leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and the downstream transcription factor STAT3. In contrast, LIF signaling is not required during germ cell ontogeny. We surmise that ectopic LIF/STAT3 stimulation reconstructs latent pluripotency and self-renewal. Notably, STAT3 targets are significantly upregulated in germ cell tumors, suggesting that dysregulation of this pathway may underlie teratocarcinogenesis. These findings demonstrate that EG cell formation is a robust experimental system for exploring mechanisms involved in reprogramming and cancer. PMID:24052943

The design, fabrication, and testing of a representative shuttle evaporative heat sink (RSEHS) system which vaporizes an expendable fluid to provide cooling for the shuttle heat transport fluid loop is reported. The optimized RSEHS minimum weight design meets or exceeds the shuttle flash evaporator system requirements. A cold trap which cryo-pumps flash evaporator exhaust water from the CSD vacuum chamber test facility to prevent water contamination of the chamber pumping equipment is also described.

In combination with a refrigeration unit, an evaporative heat exchange unit for precooling an air stream traveling toward and over the condensing coil of the refrigeration unit is described. The heat exchange unit includes: (a) a frame, (b) a porous heat transfer pad mounted in the frame; (c) nozzle means carried on the frame for directing a spray mist forwardly of the heat transfer pad, the spray mist emitted from the nozzle means initially traveling in a direction of travel such that the mist will not contact the porous heat transfer pad; (d) means mounted on the frame for causing the turbulent intermixing of the air stream with the spray mist prior to the air stream passing through the porous heat transfer pad; and (e) means for controlling the quantity of water emitted by the nozzle means such that substantially all of the spray mist is intermixed with the air stream prior to the air stream passing through the heat transfer pad.

This study focused on students' misconceptions related to evaporation, evaporation rate, and vapour pressure. Open-ended diagnostic questions were used with 107 undergraduates in the Primary Science Teacher Training Department in a state university in Turkey. In addition, 14 students from that sample were interviewed to clarify their written…

The principle that unitarity must be preserved in all processes, no matter how exotic, has led to deep insights into boundary conditions in cosmology and black hole theory. In the case of black hole evaporation, Horowitz and Maldacena were led to propose that unitarity preservation can be understood in terms of a restriction imposed on the wave function at the singularity. Gottesman and Preskill showed that this natural idea only works if one postulates the presence of “conspiracies” between systems just inside the event horizon and states at much later times, near the singularity. We argue that some AdS black holes have unusual internal thermodynamics, and that this may permit the required “conspiracies” if real black holes are described by some kind of sum over all AdS black holes having the same entropy.

This is the Lead Proposal for the proposed investigation "Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (Phase 2)" We propose to fly the Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and search for the imprint of gravitational waves produced during an inflationary epoch in the early universe. Such a signal is expected to exist: the simplest inflation models predict tensor-to-scalar ratio 0.01 < r < 0.16 corresponding to detectable amplitudes in the range 30--100 nK. Detection of the inflationary signal would have profound consequences for both cosmology and high-energy physics. Not only would it establish inflation as a physical reality, it would provide a direct, model- independent determination of the relevant energy scale, shedding light on physics at energies twelve orders of magnitude beyond those accessible to direct experimentation in particle accelerators. PIPER is a balloon-borne instrument optimized to detect the inflationary signal on large angular scales. It consists of two co-aligned telescopes cooled to 1.5 K within a large liquid helium bucket dewar. A variable-delay polarization modulator (VPM) on each telescope chops between linear and circular polarization to isolate the polarized signal while rejecting the much brighter unpolarized emission. PIPER's innovative architecture combines cryogenic optics with kilo-pixel detector arrays to provide unprecedented sensitivity to CMB polarization. The fast modulation between linear and circular polarization takes advantage of the lack of astrophysical circular polarization to eliminate common sources of systematic error. The sensitivity and control of systematic errors in turn enable measurements over most of the sky from mid-latitude launch sites; long-duration Antarctic flights are not required. With sensitivity r < 0.007 at 95% CL, PIPER will either detect the inflationary signal or rule out nearly all large-field inflation models

The scientific belief that the universe evolves in time is one of the legacies of the theory of the Big Bang. The concept that the universe has an history started to attract the interest of cosmologists soon after the first formulation of the theory: already Gamow (1948; 1949) investigated how and when galaxies could have been formed in the context of the expanding Universe. However, the specific topic of the formation (and of the fate) of the first objects dates to two decades later, when no objects with metallicities as low as those predicted by primordial nucleosynthesis (Z {approx}< 10{sup -10} {approx} 10{sup -8}Z{sub {circle_dot}}) were found. Such concerns were addressed in two seminal papers by Peebles & Dicke (1968; hereafter PD68) and by Doroshkevich, Zel'Dovich & Novikov (1967; hereafter DZN67), introducing the idea that some objects could have formed before the stars we presently observe. (1) Both PD68 and DZN67 suggest a mass of {approx} 10{sup 5} M{sub {circle_dot}} for the first generation of bound systems, based on the considerations on the cosmological Jeans length (Gamow 1948; Peebles 1965) and the possible shape of the power spectrum. (2) They point out the role of thermal instabilities in the formation of the proto-galactic bound object, and of the cooling of the gas inside it; in particular, PD68 introduces H{sub 2} cooling and chemistry in the calculations about the contraction of the gas. (3) Even if they do not specifically address the occurrence of fragmentation, these papers make two very different assumptions: PD68 assumes that the gas will fragment into ''normal'' stars to form globular clusters, while DZN67 assumes that fragmentation does not occur, and that a single ''super-star'' forms. (4) Finally, some feedback effects as considered (e.g. Peebles & Dicke considered the effects of supernovae). Today most of the research focuses on the issues when fragmentation may occur, what objects are formed and how they influence subsequent

We study the possibility that primordial magnetic fields generated in the transition between inflation and reheating posses magnetic helicity, HM. The fields are induced by stochastic currents of scalar charged particles created during the mentioned transition. We estimate the rms value of the induced magnetic helicity by computing different four-point scalar quantum electrodynamics Feynman diagrams. For any considered volume, the magnetic flux across its boundaries is in principle not null, which means that the magnetic helicity in those regions is gauge dependent. We use the prescription given by Berger and Field and interpret our result as the difference between two magnetic configurations that coincide in the exterior volume. In this case, the magnetic helicity gives only the number of magnetic links inside the considered volume. We calculate a concrete value of HM for large scales and analyze the distribution of magnetic defects as a function of the scale. Those defects correspond to regular as well as random fields in the considered volume. We find that the fractal dimension of the distribution of topological defects is D=1/2. We also study if the regular fields induced on large scales are helical, finding that they are and that the associated number of magnetic defects is independent of the scale. In this case, the fractal dimension is D=0. We finally estimate the intensity of fields induced at the horizon scale of reheating and evolve them until the decoupling of matter and radiation under the hypothesis of the inverse cascade of magnetic helicity. The resulting intensity is high enough and the coherence length long enough to have an impact on the subsequent process of structure formation.

The genetic code is implemented by aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS). These twenty enzymes are divided into two classes that, despite performing same functions, have nothing common in structure. The mystery of this striking partition of aaRSs might have been concealed in their sterically complementary modes of tRNA recognition that, as we have found recently, protect the tRNAs with complementary anticodons from confusion in translation. This finding implies that, in the beginning, life increased its coding repertoire by the pairs of complementary codons (rather than one-by-one) and used both complementary strands of genes as templates for translation. The class I and class II aaRSs may represent one of the most important examples of such primordial sence-antisence (SAS) coding (Rodin and Ohno, 1995). In this report, we address the issue of SAS coding in a wider scope. We suggest a variety of advantages that such coding would have had in exploring a wider sequence space before translation became highly specific. In particular, we confirm that in Achylia klebsiana a single gene might have originally coded for an HSP70 chaperonin (class II aaRS homolog) and an NAD-specific GDH-like enzyme (class I aaRS homolog) via its sense and antisense strands. Thus, in contrast to the conclusions in (Williams et al., 2009), this could indeed be a “Rosetta stone” (eroded somewhat, though) gene for the SAS origin of the two aaRS classes (Carter and Duax, 2002). PMID:19956936

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is it balloon-borne instrument designed to search for the faint signature of inflation in the polarized component of the cosmic microwave background (C-N-113). Each flight will be configured for a single frequency, but in order to aid in the removal of the polarized foreground signal due to Galactic dust, the filters will be changed between flights. In this way, the CMB polarization at a total of four different frequencies (200, 270, 350, and 600 GHz) will be, measured on large angular scales. PIPER consists of a pair of cryogenic telescopes, one for measuring each of Stokes Q and U in the instrument frame. Each telescope receives both linear orthogonal polarizations in two 32 x 40 element planar arrays that utilize Transition-Edge Sensors (TES). The first element in each telescope is a variable-delay polarization modulator (VPM) that fully modulates the linear Stokes parameter to which the telescope is sensitive. There are several advantages to this architecture. First, by modulating at the front of the optics, instrumental polarization is unmodulated and is therefore cleanly separated from source polarization. Second, by implementing this system with the appropriate symmetry, systematic effects can be further mitigated. In the PIPER design, many of the. systematics are manifest in the unmeasured linear Stokes parameter for each telescope and this can be separated from the desired signal. Finally, the modulation cycle never mixes the Q and U linear Stokes parameters, and thus residuals in the modulation do not twist the observed polarization vector. This is advantageous because measuring the angle of linear polarization is critical for separating the inflationary signal from other polarized components.

The Primordial Inflation Polarization ExploreR (Piper) is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter designed to search for evidence of inflation by measuring the large-angular scale CMB polarization signal. Bicep2 recently reported a detection of B-mode power corresponding to the tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.2 on approximately 2 degree scales. If the Bicep2 signal is caused by inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs), then there should be a corresponding increase in B-mode power on angular scales larger than 18 degrees. Piper is currently the only suborbital instrument capable of fully testing and extending the Bicep2 results by measuring the B-mode power spectrum on angular scales theta ? = approximately 0.6 deg to 90 deg, covering both the reionization bump and recombination peak, with sensitivity to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio down to r = 0.007, and four frequency bands to distinguish foregrounds. Piper will accomplish this by mapping 85% of the sky in four frequency bands (200, 270, 350, 600 GHz) over a series of 8 conventional balloon flights from the northern and southern hemispheres. The instrument has background-limited sensitivity provided by fully cryogenic (1.5 K) optics focusing the sky signal onto four 32×40-pixel arrays of time-domain multiplexed Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers held at 140 milli-Kelvin. Polarization sensitivity and systematic control are provided by front-end Variabledelay Polarization Modulators (VPMs), which rapidly modulate only the polarized sky signal at 3 Hz and allow Piper to instantaneously measure the full Stokes vector (I,Q,U,0V) for each pointing. We describe the Piper instrument and progress towards its first flight.

We study the simple gauge invariant model {f^2}FF as a way to generate primordial magnetic fields (PMF) in natural inflation (NI). We compute both magnetic and electric spectra generated by the {f^2}FF model in NI for different values of model parameters and find that both de Sitter and power law expansion lead to the same results at sufficiently large number of e-foldings. We also find that the necessary scale invariance property of the PMF cannot be obtained in NI in first order of slow roll limits under the constraint of inflationary potential, V( 0 ) ˜eq 0. Furthermore, if this constraint is relaxed to achieve scale invariance, then the model suffers from the backreaction problem for the co-moving wave number, k ≲ 8.0× 10^{-7} {Mpc^{-1}} and Hubble parameter, H_i ≳ 1.25× 10^{-3} {M_{Pl}}. The former can be considered as a lower bound of k and the later as an upper bound of H_i for a model which is free from the backreaction problem. Further, we show that there is a narrow range of the height of the potential Λ around {Λ _{min}} ≈ 0.00874{M_{{Pl}}} and of k around {k_{min}} ˜ 0.0173{Mp}{{c}^{ - 1}}, at which the energy of the electric field can fall below the energy of the magnetic field. The range of k lies within some observable scales. However, the relatively short range of k presents a challenge to the viability of this model.

A method for fabrication of polymer composite layers in a vacuum is disclosed. More specifically, the method of dissolving salts in a monomer solution, vacuum flash evaporating the solution, condensing the flash evaporated solution as a liquid film, and forming the condensed liquid film into a polymer composite layer on a substrate is disclosed.

A method for fabrication of polymer composite layers in a vacuum is disclosed. More specifically, the method of dissolving salts in a monomer solution, vacuum flash evaporating the solution, condensing the flash evaporated solution as a liquid film, and forming the condensed liquid film into a polymer composite layer on a substrate is disclosed.

Microfluidic devices have become more and more popular over the last decades [1]. Cooling is a topic where microstructures offer significant advantages compared to conventional techniques due the much higher possible surface to volume ratios and short heat transfer lengths. By evaporating of a fluid in microchannels, compact, fast and powerful cooling devices become possible [2]. Experimental results for different designs of microstructured evaporators are presented here. They have been obtained either using water as evaporating coolant or the refrigerant R134a (Tetrafluoroethane). A new microstructured evaporator design consisting of bended microchannels instead of straight channels for a better performance is shown and compared to previous results [2] for the evaporation of R134a in straight microchannels.

Evaporation is the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor, and is a key step in Earth's water cycle. At the molecular level, evaporation requires breaking at least one very strong intermolecular bond between two water molecules at the interface. Despite the importance of this process the molecular mechanism by which an evaporating water molecule gains sufficient energy to escape from the surface has remained elusive. Here, we show, using molecular dynamics simulations at the water-air interface with polarizable classical force field models, that the high kinetic energy of the evaporated water molecule is enabled by a well-timed making and breaking of hydrogen bonds involving at least three water molecules at the interface, the recoil of which allows one of the molecules to escape. The evaporation of water is thus enabled by concerted, ultrafast hydrogen-bond dynamics of interfacial water, and follows one specific molecular pathway.

There are many experimental evidences of the presence of an ionizing background radiation flux at large redshifts, whose nature is doubtful. A lot of information about the characteristics of such a background can be obtained both from the study of the Gunn-Peterson effect and from the so-called "proximity effect." In some previous works I suggested the possibility that this ionizing flux comes from the quantum evaporation of primordialblack holes (PBH's); here, I discuss the constraints that the experimental measurements put upon the free parameters of this reionization model and I try to verify its reliability. In particular, the radiation intensity of the background at the hydrogen Lyman edge, as inferred from the proximity effect, enables me to determine an upper limit to the PBH's average relic mass; due to our poor knowledge of the ultimate fate of the evaporatingblack holes, this limit represents an important theoretical information. In the second part of this paper I study the absorption of the ionizing background due to Lyα clouds: in particular, I discuss this phenomenon in the presence of different absorption levels and I calculate the HI Gunn-Peterson optical depth τGP(z) from a comparison with the experimental data of Giallongo et al. (τGP, HI < 0.02 ± 0.03) I obtain a constraint on the intergalactic medium density parameter, namely ΩIGM < 0.020. A study of the characteristics of the absorbers is also performed: I determine the hydrogen gas density nH,c and the column density NHI for Lyα clouds; a satisfactory agreement with the available experimental data is obtained in the case of expanding, adiabatically cooled clouds. Finally, the same kind of analysis is performed for He II: in this case, the theoretical optical depth I obtain is smaller than the preliminary experimental lower limit of Jakobsen et al. (τGP > 1.7).

From previous studies of the effect of primordial magnetic fields on early structure formation, we know that the presence of primordial magnetic fields during early structure formation could induce more perturbations at small scales (at present 1-10 h {sup -1} Mpc) as compared to the usual {Lambda}CDM theory. Matter power spectra over these scales are effectively probed by cosmological observables such as shear correlation and Ly{alpha} clouds. In this paper we discuss the implications of primordial magnetic fields on the distribution of Ly{alpha} clouds. We simulate the line-of-sight density fluctuation including the contribution coming from the primordial magnetic fields. We compute the evolution of Ly{alpha} opacity for this case and compare our theoretical estimates of Ly{alpha} opacity with the existing data to constrain the parameters of the primordial magnetic fields. We also discuss the case when the two density fields are correlated. Our analysis yields an upper bound of roughly 0.3-0.6 nG on the magnetic field strength for a range of nearly scale-invariant models, corresponding to a magnetic field power spectrum index n {approx_equal} -3.

This paper extends Jung's work on the relationship of art to (postulated) archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes of the collective unconscious, according to Jung, are revealed to ego consciousness only by way of images--images of a specific form. Jung suggests that archetypes, primordial images, combine two aspects in a single form and are therefore paradoxical. The wise old man and youth and hermaphrodites illustrate Jung's definition of a primordial image. My study of Jung's illustrations concludes that he is referring to what I term double-figures as the design form of primordial imagery. I elaborate upon the design form of double-figures, and illustrate my conception of archetypal imagery through comparative analysis of nine cases of double-figure imagery from selected prehistoric and contemporary societies. Double-figures, as archetypal primordial imagery of the collective unconscious, are spontaneously generated, autonomous, and known to a wide variety of societies. I distinguish between form and content in the study of primordial imagery, and conclude with a summary of the importance of Jung to the cross-cultural study of art. PMID:1938606

We investigate how well galaxy cluster number counts can constrain the primordial power spectrum. Measurements of the primary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background may be limited, by the presence of foregrounds from secondary sources, to probing the primordial power spectrum at wave numbers less than about 0.30h Mpc{sup -1}. We break up the primordial power spectrum into a number of nodes and interpolate linearly between each node. This allows us to show that cluster number counts could then extend the constraints on the form of the primordial power spectrum up to wave numbers of about 0.45h Mpc{sup -1}. We estimate combinations of constraints from PLANCK and SPT primary cosmic microwave background and their respective Sunyaev-Zeldovich surveys. We find that their constraining ability is limited by uncertainties in the mass-scaling relations. We also estimate the constraint from clusters detected from a SNAP-like gravitational lensing survey. As there is an unambiguous and simple relationship between the filtered shear of the lensing survey and the cluster mass, it may be possible to obtain much tighter constraints on the primordial power spectrum in this case.

We study the corpuscular model of an evaporatingblack hole consisting of a specific quantum state for a large number N of self-confined bosons. The single-particle spectrum contains a discrete ground state of energy m (corresponding to toy gravitons forming the black hole), and a gapless continuous spectrum (to accommodate for the Hawking radiation with energy ω >m ). Each constituent is in a superposition of the ground state and a Planckian distribution at the expected Hawking temperature in the continuum. We first find that, assuming the Hawking radiation is the leading effect of the internal scatterings, the corresponding N -particle state can be collectively described by a single-particle wave function given by a superposition of a total ground state with energy M =N m and a Planckian distribution for E >M at the same Hawking temperature. From this collective state, we compute the partition function and obtain an entropy which reproduces the usual area law with a logarithmic correction precisely related with the Hawking component. By means of the horizon wave function for the system, we finally show the backreaction of modes with ω >m reduces the Hawking flux. Both corrections, to the entropy and to the Hawking flux, suggest the evaporation properly stops for vanishing mass, if the black hole is in this particular quantum state.

The work on the properties of thin boron films made by vacuum evaporation of elemental boron using an electron beam as the energy source is reported. The program aimed at characterizing the properties of vacuum evaporated films. The work was directed toward those variables considered to be important in affecting the tensile strength of the boron films. In general, the thickness of the films was less than 0.002 in. The temperature of the substrate on which the boron was condensed was found to be most important. Three distinctly different forms of boron deposit were produced. Although the transition temperature was not sharply defined, at substrate temperatures of less than approximately 600 deg C the boron deposits were amorphous to X-ray. If the substrate were highly polished, the deposits were black and mirror-like. For substrates with coefficients of thermal expansion close to that of boron, the deposits were then continuous and uncracked. The studies suggest that the potential continues to exist for film-type composites to have both high strength and high modulus.

When a liquid is heated to a temperature far above its boiling point, it evaporates abruptly. Boiling of liquid at high temperatures can be explosive and destructive, and poses a potential hazard for a host of industrial processes. Explosive boiling may occur if a cold and volatile liquid is brought into contact with a hot and non-volatile liquid, or if a liquid is superheated or depressurized rapidly. Such possibilities are realized, for example, in the depressurization of low boiling point liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the pipelines or storage tanks as a result of a leak. While boiling of highly heated liquids can be destructive at macroscale, the (nearly) instantaneous pace of the process and the release of large amount of kinetic energy make the phenomena extremely attractive at microscale where it is possible to utilize the released energy to derive micromechanical systems. For instance, there is currently a growing interest in micro-explosion of liquid for generation of micro bubbles for actuation purposes. The aim of the current study is to gain a fundamental understanding of the subject using direct numerical simulations. In particular, we seek to investigate the boundary between stable and unstable nucleus growth in terms of the degree of liquid superheat and to compare the dynamics of unstable and stable growth.

One would expect spacetime to have a foamlike structure on the Planck scale with a very high topology. If spacetime is simply connected (which is assumed in this paper), the nontrivial homology occurs in dimension two, and spacetime can be regarded as being essentially the topological sum of S2×S2 and K3 bubbles. Comparison with the instantons for pair creation of black holes shows that the S2×S2 bubbles can be interpreted as closed loops of virtual black holes. It is shown that scattering in such topological fluctuations leads to loss of quantum coherence, or in other words, to a superscattering matrix S/ that does not factorize into an S matrix and its adjoint. This loss of quantum coherence is very small at low energies for everything except scalar fields, leading to the prediction that we may never observe the Higgs particle. Another possible observational consequence may be that the θ angle of QCD is zero without having to invoke the problematical existence of a light axion. The picture of virtual black holes given here also suggests that macroscopic black holes will evaporate down to the Planck size and then disappear in the sea of virtual black holes.

We study features in the bispectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation correlated with the reconstructed primordial power spectrum from the observed cosmic microwave background temperature data. We first show how the bispectrum can be completely specified in terms of the power spectrum and its first two derivatives, valid for any configuration of interest. Then using a model-independent reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum from the Planck angular power spectrum of temperature anisotropies, we compute the bispectrum in different triangular configurations. We find that in the squeezed limit at k ∼ 0.06 Mpc-1 and k ∼ 0.014 Mpc-1 there are marginal 2σ deviations from the standard featureless bispectrum, which meanwhile is consistent with the reconstructed bispectrum in the equilateral configuration.

We investigate constraints on power spectra of the primordial curvature and tensor perturbations with priors based on single-field slow-roll inflation models. The Hubble slow-roll parameters are included in cosmological parameters and the primordial power spectra are generated using the inflationary flow equations. Using data from recent observations of CMB and several measurements of geometrical distances in the late Universe, we perform Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection for models that have separate priors on the slow-roll parameters. The same analysis is also performed adopting the standard parameterization of the primordial power spectra. We confirmed that the scale-invariant Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is disfavored with more significance than previous studies. While current observations appear to be optimally modeled with some simple models of single-field slow-roll inflation, data is not enough constraining to distinguish these models.

Measuring the deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum is a critical test of inflation. In this paper we reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations from the cosmic microwave background data, including the 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope 148 GHz data, by using a binning method of a cubic spline interpolation in log-log space. We find that the power-law spectrum is preferred by the data and that the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is disfavored at 95% confidence level. These conclusions hold with and without allowing for tensor modes, however the simpler model without tensors is preferred by the data. We do not find evidence for a feature in the primordial power spectrum — in full agreement with generic predictions from cosmological inflation.

The use of solar energy for producing fresh water by desalination could avoid or reduce the expenditure of fossil fuels for that purpose. At the current time, all solar stills can be viewed as being in various stages of development, rather than as an established technology. Evaporating wick technique is developed world wide, but still has got some limitations. In the ordinary evaporating wick still made of black dyed jute, the heat collection, evaporation, and condensation takes place in the same still. To improve the efficiency and reduce the total cost of the solar still a modified unit was designed and tried. In the modified unit, the condensation operation is separated from the evaporation one. The evaporation unit which is inclined at 24/sup 0/ (the latitude of our place) consists mainly of a metallic basin having dimensions ( 1 x 1 meter) insulating with a layer of foam urethane 4 cm. thickness beneath it. The wick is suspended between two tubes, upper feeding perforated tube (2 mm. hole diameter) and lower suspending tube. The condensation unit contains the condenser which is a metallic box having dimensions of (0.9 x 0.9 meter) over which the vapor condenses. In between the evaporation and condensation unit there is a 0.1 HP. fan to suck the humid air from the evaporation unit to the condensation one. The wick still is fed continuously with water (trickle feeding) from a tank equipped with a level control valve. From this feed system water will ascard by capillarity to the edge of the gutter and then flow downward by gravity. It was found that the outside condensation enhance the efficiency of energy utilization, and the productivity of the still. The performance of the still was tested in many periods all over the year, important observations from the still performance during these period were analysed. The temperature distribution was observed and analysed. Experimental results are presented in the full paper.

A one-dimensional loop model for the evaporative cooling of the coronal flare plasma was investigated. Conductive losses dominated radiative cooling, and the evaporative velocities were small compared to the sound speed. The profile and evolution of the temperature were calculated. The model was in agreement with soft X-ray observations on the evolution of flare temperatures and emission measures. The effect of evaporation was to greatly reduce the conductive heat flux into the chromosphere and to enhance the EUV emission from the coronal flare plasma.

We investigate a one-dimensional loop model for the evaporative cooling of the coronal flare plasma. The important assumptions are that conductive losses dominate radiative cooling and that the evaporative velocities are small compared with the sound speed. We calculate the profile and evolution of the temperature and verify the accuracy of our assumptions for plasma parameters typical of flare regions. The model is in agreement with soft X-ray observations on the evolution of flare temperatures and emission measures. The effect of evaporation is to greatly reduce the conductive heat flux into the chromosphere and to enhance the EUV emission from the coronal flare plasma.

Black militancy is treated as an instance of class consciousness with criteria and scales developed to measure black consciousness and "self-placement" into black consciousness. These dimensions are then investigated with respect to the social and symbolic participation in the ideology of the black movement on the part of a sample of black…

Recent progress in black hole research is illustrated by three examples. We discuss the observational challenges that were met to show that a supermassive black hole exists at the center of our galaxy. Stellar-size black holes have been studied in x-ray binaries and microquasars. Finally, numerical simulations have become possible for the merger of black hole binaries. PMID:11553801

We show that if the propagating speed of gravitational waves (GWs) gradually diminishes during inflation, the power spectrum of primordial GWs will be strongly blue, while that of the primordial scalar perturbation may be unaffected. We also illustrate that such a scenario is actually a disformal dual to the superinflation, but it does not have the ghost instability. The blue tilt obtained is 0

Effects of neutrino free streaming are evaluated on the primordial spectrum of gravitational radiation taking both neutrino chemical potential and masses into account. The former or the lepton asymmetry induces two competitive effects, namely, to increase anisotropic stress, which damps the gravitational wave more, and to delay the matter-radiation equality time, which reduces the damping. The latter effect is more prominent and a large lepton asymmetry would reduce the damping. We may thereby be able to measure the magnitude of lepton asymmetry from the primordial gravitational wave spectrum.

We consider the space-condensate inflation model to study the primordial gravitational waves generated in the early Universe. We calculate the energy spectrum of gravitational waves induced by the space-condensate inflation model for the full frequency range with the assumption that the phase transition between two consecutive regimes is abrupt during the evolution of the Universe. The suppression of the energy spectrum is found in our model for the decreasing frequency of gravitational waves depending on the model parameter. To realize the suppression of the energy spectrum of the primordial gravitational waves, we study the existence of the early phase transition during inflation for the space-condensate inflation model.

The results of new theoretical work on surface Li-7 and Li-6 evolution in the oldest halo stars are presented, along with a new and refined analysis of the predicted primordial Li abundance resulting from big-bang nucleosynthesis. This makes it possible to determine the constraints which can be imposed on cosmology using primordial Li and both standard big-bang and stellar-evolution models. This leads to limits on the baryon density today of 0.0044-0.025 (where the Hubble constant is 100h km/sec Mpc) and imposes limitations on alternative nucleosynthesis scenarios.

The cosmological features of primordialblack holes formed from collapsed cosmic string loops are studied. Observational restrictions on a population of primordialblack holes are used to restrict f, the fraction of cosmic string loops which collapse to form black holes, and mu, the cosmic string mass-per-unit length. Using a realistic model of cosmic strings, we find the strongest restriction on the parameters f and mu is due to the energy density in 100MeV photons radiated by the black holes. We also find that inert black hole remnants cannot serve as the dark matter. If earlier, crude estimates of f are reliable, our results severely restrict mu, and therefore limit the viability of the cosmic string large-scale structure scenario.

We show that, in order to preserve the equivalence principle until late times in unitarily evaporatingblack holes, the thermodynamic entropy of a black hole must be primarily entropy of entanglement across the event horizon. For such black holes, we show that the information entering a black hole becomes encoded in correlations within a tripartite quantum state, the quantum analogue of a one-time pad, and is only decoded into the outgoing radiation very late in the evaporation. This behavior generically describes the unitary evaporation of highly entangled black holes and requires no specially designed evolution. Our work suggests the existence of a matter-field sum rule for any fundamental theory. PMID:23521247

Calculation of evaporative heat loss is essential to heat balance calculations. Despite recognition that the value for latent heat of evaporation, used in these calculations, may not always reflect the real cooling benefit to the body, only limited quantitative data on this is available, which has found little use in recent literature. In this experiment a thermal manikin, (MTNW, Seattle, WA) was used to determine the effective cooling power of moisture evaporation. The manikin measures both heat loss and mass loss independently, allowing a direct calculation of an effective latent heat of evaporation (λeff). The location of the evaporation was varied: from the skin or from the underwear or from the outerwear. Outerwear of different permeabilities was used, and different numbers of layers were used. Tests took place in 20°C, 0.5 m/s at different humidities and were performed both dry and with a wet layer, allowing the breakdown of heat loss in dry and evaporative components. For evaporation from the skin, λeff is close to the theoretical value (2,430 J/g) but starts to drop when more clothing is worn, e.g., by 11% for underwear and permeable coverall. When evaporation is from the underwear, λeff reduction is 28% wearing a permeable outer. When evaporation is from the outermost layer only, the reduction exceeds 62% (no base layer), increasing toward 80% with more layers between skin and wet outerwear. In semi- and impermeable outerwear, the added effect of condensation in the clothing opposes this effect. A general formula for the calculation of λeff was developed. PMID:23329814

We consider the effect of evaporation on the aggregation of a number of elastic objects due to a liquid's surface tension. In particular, we consider an array of spring-block elements in which the gaps between blocks are filled by thin liquid films that evaporate during the course of an experiment. Using lubrication theory to account for the fluid flow within the gaps, we study the dynamics of aggregation. We find that a non-zero evaporation rate causes the elements to aggregate more quickly and, indeed, to contact within finite time. However, we also show that the number of elements within each cluster decreases as the evaporation rate increases. We explain these results quantitatively by comparison with the corresponding two-body problem and discuss their relevance for controlling pattern formation in carbon nanotube forests.

This paper develops a simple analytical model for the phenomenon of 'explosive evaporation' driven by nonthermal electron heating in solar flares. The model relates the electron energy flux and spectrum, plus details of the preflare atmosphere, to the time scale for explosive evaporation to occur, the maximum pressure and temperature to be reached, rough estimates for the UV pulse emission flux and duration, and the evolution of the blueshifted component of the soft X-ray lines. An expression is given for the time scale for buildup to maximum pressures and the onset of rapid motion of the explosively evaporating plasma. This evaporation can excite a rapid response of UV line and continuum emission. The emission lines formed in the plasma approach a given emissivity-weighted blueshift speed.

An improved evaporator section for a dual manifold heat pipe. Both the upper and lower manifolds can have surfaces exposed to the heat source which evaporate the working fluid. The tubes in the tube bank between the manifolds have openings in their lower extensions into the lower manifold to provide for the transport of evaporated working fluid from the lower manifold into the tubes and from there on into the upper manifold and on to the condenser portion of the heat pipe. A wick structure lining the inner walls of the evaporator tubes extends into both the upper and lower manifolds. At least some of the tubes also have overflow tubes contained within them to carry condensed working fluid from the upper manifold to pass to the lower without spilling down the inside walls of the tubes.

An improved evaporator section is described for a dual manifold heat pipe. Both the upper and lower manifolds can have surfaces exposed to the heat source which evaporate the working fluid. The tubes in the tube bank between the manifolds have openings in their lower extensions into the lower manifold to provide for the transport of evaporated working fluid from the lower manifold into the tubes and from there on into the upper manifold and on to the condenser portion of the heat pipe. A wick structure lining the inner walls of the evaporator tubes extends into both the upper and lower manifolds. At least some of the tubes also have overflow tubes contained within them to carry condensed working fluid from the upper manifold to pass to the lower without spilling down the inside walls of the tubes. 1 figure.

With their 1963 article in Cryogenics Horst Meyer and his collaborators triggered intense research activity on the evaporation of superfluid helium. Discussing this subject with him in 1975 was enlightening. Fifty years later, the analogy between the photoelectric effect and the evaporation of superfluid helium in the low temperature limit is not yet clear, although remarkable progress has been made in its observation and its understanding. This special issue of the Journal of Low Temperature Physics is an opportunity to recall the history of quantum evaporation, and to express my gratitude to Horst Meyer. It describes quickly most of the experimental and theoretical works which have been published on quantum evaporation during the last 50 years, but it is not a comprehensive review of this fascinating subject.

Tower more efficient than conventional evaporation equipment. Liquids such as milk and fruit juice concentrated by passing them through tiny nozzle to form droplets, then allowing droplets to fall through evacuated tower with cooled walls.

Introduction: We evaluate the tidal disruption of planetary embryos from dynamical, geophysical and meteoritical perspectives. It is widely believed that the present population of asteroids (and thus most meteorites) derive from material that survived intense (99.9%) mass depletion in the protoplanetary disk between Earth and Jupiter. According to this scenario, about one in a thousand bodies survived scattering, close encounters and mergers to become the ancestors of the present main belt and the precursors of meteorites. Close tidal encounters were inevitable, because a deep Roche encounter near a growing planet is about as likely as accretion onto the same planet. Process and Implications: This "long march" took its toll on the survivors, which begat the present asteroids and meteorites. Specifically, for very weak bodies (rubble piles, or those with deep regolith) and for gravity-dominated bodies with viscosity less than (ν lim ˜ √ {G}ρ 3/2 R2~1011 poise for 100 km radius), an encounter with periapsis primordial asteroids underwent catastrophic tidal disruption during encounters with the transitory main-belt embryos [c.f. 2], if a majority were either partially molten or rubble piles during the first ~3 Ma. Melting and differentiation of asteroid parent bodies took place during this time [3], so planetary mantles may have been tidally stripped in a process that may have been as common as giant collisions. Tidal disruption produces a symmetric chain of fragments. In models of tidal disruption [1], differentiated bodies pull apart into one or more central cores almost devoid of mantle rock, flanked by core

Multiple-effect evaporation is commonly used in chemical process plants to minimize energy consumption and cooling water. In this system, several evaporators are connected by piping so that vapor passes from one effect to the next in series. Thus, the heat supplied to the first evaporator is used to vaporize water in the first effect; this vapor, in turn, passes to the next effect, until, finally, the heat in the vapor supplied to the last effect passes on to the condenser. The net result of this arrangement is the multiple reuse of heat, and a marked increase in the economic of the evaporation system. In addition to savings in steam use, there is also a saving in condenser cooling water as the number of effects increases. On the other hand, an increase in the number of effects represents an increase in capital costs since more heat transfer area is required in the evaporator system. Thus, the choice of the proper--that is, optimum--number of effects is dictated by an economic balance between the savings in steam and cooling water versus that of the additional investment costs. The paper describes the basic equations and an economic analysis of evaporator systems, and illustrates the method with an example.

Testing was performed to determine the feasibility and processing characteristics of an evaporation process to reduce the volume of the recycle stream from the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The concentrated recycle would be returned to DWPF while the overhead condensate would be transferred to the Effluent Treatment Plant. Various blends of evaporator feed were tested using simulants developed from characterization of actual recycle streams from DWPF and input from DWPF-Engineering. The simulated feed was evaporated in laboratory scale apparatus to target a 30X volume reduction. Condensate and concentrate samples from each run were analyzed and the process characteristics (foaming, scaling, etc) were visually monitored during each run. The following conclusions were made from the testing: Concentration of the ''typical'' recycle stream in DWPF by 30X was feasible. The addition of DWTT recycle streams to the typical recycle stream raises the solids content of the evaporator feed considerably and lowers the amount of concentration that can be achieved. Foaming was noted during all evaporation tests and must be addressed prior to operation of the full-scale evaporator. Tests were conducted that identified Dow Corning 2210 as an antifoam candidate that warrants further evaluation. The condensate has the potential to exceed the ETP WAC for mercury, silicon, and TOC. Controlling the amount of equipment decontamination recycle in the evaporator blend would help meet the TOC limits. The evaporator condensate will be saturated with mercury and elemental mercury will collect in the evaporator condensate collection vessel. No scaling on heating surfaces was noted during the tests, but splatter onto the walls of the evaporation vessels led to a buildup of solids. These solids were difficult to remove with 2M nitric acid. Precipitation of solids was not noted during the testing. Some of the aluminum present in the recycle streams was converted from gibbsite to

This paper deals with Oort cloud formation while the Sun was in an embedded cluster and surrounded by its primordial nebula. This work is a continuation of Brasser et al. [Brasser, R., Duncan, M., Levison, H., 2006. Icarus 184, 59-82], building on the model presented therein, and adding the aerodynamic drag and gravitational potential of the primordial solar nebula. Results are presented of numerical simulations of comets subject to the gravitational influence of the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, star cluster and primordial solar nebula; some of the simulations included the gravitational influence of Uranus and Neptune as well. The primordial solar nebula was approximated by the minimum-mass Hayashi model [Hayashi, C., Nakozawa, K., Nakagawa, Y., 1985. In: Black, D.C., Matthews, M.S. (Eds.). Protostars and Planets II. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ] whose inner and outer radii have been truncated at various distances from the Sun. A comet size of 1.7 km was used for most of our simulations. In all of our simulations, the density of the primordial solar nebula decayed exponentially with an e-folding time of 2 Myr. It turns out that when the primordial solar nebula extends much beyond Saturn or Neptune, virtually no material will end up in the Oort cloud (OC) during this phase. Instead, the majority of the material will be on circular orbits inside of Jupiter if the inner edge of the disk is well inside Jupiter's orbit. If the disk's inner edge is beyond Jupiter's orbit, most comets end up on orbits in exterior mean-motion resonances with Saturn when Uranus and Neptune are not present. In those cases where the outer edge of the disk is close to Saturn or Neptune, the fraction of material that ends up in the subsequently formed OC is much less than that found in Brasser et al. [Brasser, R., Duncan, M., Levison, H., 2006. Icarus 184, 59-82] for the same cluster densities. This implies that for comets of roughly 2 km in size, the presence of the primordial solar nebula

We explore the cosmological consequences of some possible big bang produced by a black-hole with mass M in a 5D extended SdS. Under these particular circumstances, the effective 4D metric obtained by the use of a constant foliation on the extra coordinate is comported as a false white hole (FWH), which evaporates for all unstable modes that have wavelengths bigger than the size of the FWH. Outside the white hole the repulsive gravitational field can be considered as weak, so that the dynamics for fluctuations of the inflaton field and the scalar perturbations of the metric can be linearized.

The question of whether information is lost in black holes is investigated using Euclidean path integrals. The formation and evaporation of black holes is regarded as a scattering problem with all measurements being made at infinity. This seems to be well formulated only in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. The path integral over metrics with trivial topology is unitary and information preserving. On the other hand, the path integral over metrics with nontrivial topologies leads to correlation functions that decay to zero. Thus at late times only the unitary information preserving path integrals over trivial topologies will contribute. Elementary quantum gravity interactions do not lose information or quantum coherence.

Classically oscillating massive fields can be used as ''standard clocks'' in the primordial universe. They generate features in primordial density perturbations that directly record the scale factor evolution a(t). Detecting and measuring these ''fingerprint'' signals is challenging but would provide a direct evidence for a specific primordial universe paradigm. In this paper, such a search is performed for the power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies using the WMAP7 data. Although a good fit to the data privileges a scale around k = 0.01 Mpc{sup −1}, we do not find statistical significance for, neither against, the presence of any feature. We then forecast the expected constraints a Planck-like CMB experiment can impose on the fingerprint parameters by using Markov-Chain-Monte-Carlo (MCMC) methods on mock data. We exhibit a high sensitivity zone for wavenumbers ranging from 0.01 Mpc{sup −1} to 0.1 Mpc{sup −1} in which fingerprints show up first on the posterior probability distribution of the wavenumber at which they occur, and then on the modulation frequency. Within the sensitivity zone, we show that the inflationary paradigm can be inferred from a single feature generating at least a 20% modulation of the primordial power spectrum. This minimal value sensitively depends on the modulation frequency.

It is shown that squeezed states of primordial gravitational waves are inevitably produced in the course of cosmological evolution. The theory of squeezed gravitons is very similar to the theory of squeezed light. Squeezed parameters and statistical properties of the expected relic gravity-wave radiation are described.

Squeezed primordial non-Gaussianity can strongly constrain early-universe physics, but it can only be observed on the CMB after it has been gravitationally lensed. We give a new simple non-perturbative prescription for accurately calculating the effect of lensing on any squeezed primordial bispectrum shape, and test it with simulations. We give the generalization to polarization bispectra, and discuss the effect of lensing on the trispectrum. We explain why neglecting the lensing smoothing effect does not significantly bias estimators of local primordial non-Gaussianity, even though the change in shape can be ∼>10%. We also show how τ{sub NL} trispectrum estimators can be well approximated by much simpler CMB temperature modulation estimators, and hence that there is potentially a ∼ 10–30% bias due to very large-scale lensing modes, depending on the range of modulation scales included. Including dipole sky modulations can halve the τ{sub NL} error bar if kinematic effects can be subtracted using known properties of the CMB temperature dipole. Lensing effects on the g{sub NL} trispectrum are small compared to the error bar. In appendices we give the general result for lensing of any primordial bispectrum, and show how any full-sky squeezed bispectrum can be decomposed into orthogonal modes of distinct angular dependence.

Many asteroid families are identified and well characterized all over the main belt asteroid. Interestingly, however, none of them are older than ~4 Gyr. Many mechanisms have been proposed to disperse such old primordial asteroid families that presumably have existed, but none have really worked. Here we present a plausible mechanism for dispersing primordial asteroid families that is based on the 5-planet instability model known as jumping Jupiter. Using two different evolutions for the jumping-Jupiter model, we have numerically integrated orbits of eight primordial families. Our results show that the most important effect on the asteroid families' eccentricity and inclination dispersal is that of the secular resonances, in some cases associated with the mean motion resonances. As for the semimajoraxes spreading we find that the principal effect is that of close encounters with the fifth giant planet whose orbit briefly overlaps with (part of) the main belt. Therefore, the existence of a fifth giant planet with the mass comparable with that of Uranus' or Neptune's could contribute in important ways to dispersal of the primordial asteroid families. To have that effect, the interloper planet should penetrate and considerably interact with the asteroids during the instability phase.

We study primordial fluctuations generated during inflation in a class of models motivated by the DBI Galileons, which are extensions of the DBI action that yield second-order field equations. This class of models generalizes the DBI Galileons in a similar way with K inflation. We calculate the primordial non-Gaussianity from the bispectrum of the curvature perturbations at leading order in the slow-varying approximations. We show that the estimator for the equilateral-type non-Gaussianity, fNLequil, can be applied to measure the amplitude of the primordial bispectrum even in the presence of the Galileon-like term although it gives a slightly different momentum dependence from K-inflation models. For the DBI Galileons, we find -0.32/cs2primordial non-Gaussianities can be obtained when cs is much smaller than 1 as in the usual DBI inflation. In G-inflation models, where a de Sitter solution is obtained without any potentials, the nonlinear parameter is given by fNLequil=4.62r-2/3, where r is the tensor to scalar ratio, giving a stringent constraint on the model.

Primary microcephaly is a developmental brain anomaly that results from defective proliferation of neuroprogenitors in the germinal periventricular zone. More than a dozen genes are known to be mutated in autosomal-recessive primary microcephaly in isolation or in association with a more generalized growth deficiency (microcephalic primordial dwarfism), but the genetic heterogeneity is probably more extensive. In a research protocol involving autozygome mapping and exome sequencing, we recruited a multiplex consanguineous family who is affected by severe microcephalic primordial dwarfism and tested negative on clinical exome sequencing. Two candidate autozygous intervals were identified, and the second round of exome sequencing revealed a single intronic variant therein (c.2885+8A>G [p.Ser963∗] in RTTN exon 23). RT-PCR confirmed that this change creates a cryptic splice donor and thus causes retention of the intervening 7 bp of the intron and leads to premature truncation. On the basis of this finding, we reanalyzed the exome file of a second consanguineous family affected by a similar phenotype and identified another homozygous change in RTTN as the likely causal mutation. Combined linkage analysis of the two families confirmed that RTTN maps to the only significant linkage peak. Finally, through international collaboration, a Canadian multiplex family affected by microcephalic primordial dwarfism and biallelic mutation of RTTN was identified. Our results expand the phenotype of RTTN-related disorders, hitherto limited to polymicrogyria, to include microcephalic primordial dwarfism with a complex brain phenotype involving simplified gyration. PMID:26608784

Lymphocytes normally develop within anatomically distinct tissues. In Cell Reports, Swann et al. (2014) reconstruct the primordial thymus and suggest that it was a site of combined T and B lymphopoiesis before evolving into an organ specialized for T cell production. PMID:25148021

Context. We investigate the formation and evolution of comet nuclei and other trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the solar nebula and primordial disk prior to the giant planet orbit instability foreseen by the Nice model. Aims: Our goal is to determine whether most observed comet nuclei are primordial rubble-pile survivors that formed in the solar nebula and young primordial disk or collisional rubble piles formed later in the aftermath of catastrophic disruptions of larger parent bodies. We also propose a concurrent comet and TNO formation scenario that is consistent with observations. Methods: We used observations of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft, particularly by the OSIRIS camera system, combined with data from the NASA Stardust sample-return mission to comet 81P/Wild 2 and from meteoritics; we also used existing observations from ground or from spacecraft of irregular satellites of the giant planets, Centaurs, and TNOs. We performed modeling of thermophysics, hydrostatics, orbit evolution, and collision physics. Results: We find that thermal processing due to short-lived radionuclides, combined with collisional processing during accretion in the primordial disk, creates a population of medium-sized bodies that are comparably dense, compacted, strong, heavily depleted in supervolatiles like CO and CO2; they contain little to no amorphous water ice, and have experienced extensive metasomatism and aqueous alteration due to liquid water. Irregular satellites Phoebe and Himalia are potential representatives of this population. Collisional rubble piles inherit these properties from their parents. Contrarily, comet nuclei have low density, high porosity, weak strength, are rich in supervolatiles, may contain amorphous water ice, and do not display convincing evidence of in situ metasomatism or aqueous alteration. We outline a comet formation scenario that starts in the solar nebula and ends in the primordial disk, that reproduces these

A local Hawking temperature was recently derived for any future outer trapping horizon in spherical symmetry, using a Hamilton-Jacobi tunneling method, and is given by a dynamical surface gravity as defined geometrically. Descriptions are given of the operational meaning of the temperature, in terms of what observers measure, and its relation to the usual Hawking temperature for static black holes. Implications for the final fate of an evaporatingblack hole are discussed.

The objective of this study was to investigate the developmental morphology of yak oocytes from the primordial follicle to the tertiary follicle. Yak oocytes from resting primordial (n = 6), activated primordial (n = 12), primary (n = 9), secondary (n = 7) and early tertiary (n = 5) follicles were processed and analysed by light and transmission electron microscopy. The resting primordial follicular oocyte was characterized by relatively smooth surface on the oolemma, the accumulation of free and organelle-related smooth (SER) and rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER), round or oval mitochondria, and polyribosomes on the surface of the RER and throughout the ooplasm. The activated primordial follicular oocyte was dominated by numerous coated pits and coated vesicles on the oolemma, and round mitochondria. Up to the secondary follicular stage the oocyte displayed an increase in the number of microvilli, polyribosome, Golgi complexes and mitochondria with distinct cristae. During the secondary follicular stage, formation of the zona pellucida, development of a desmosome-like connection between the oocyte and the granulosa cells, formation of the cortical granules in the oocyte and elongated mitochondria in nearly all oocytes were seen. In the early tertiary follicular oocyte, the perivitelline space was present and a decrease in free SER and RER in the ooplasm occurred; finally, the nucleus migrated from an eccentric to a peripheral location. In conclusion, the growth of the yak oocyte is associated with the relocation and modulation of a number of cytoplasmic organelles as well as the development of oocyte-specific structures such as the zona pellucida, desmosome-like connection and cortical granules. PMID:20059745

The simplest models of inflation predict small non-Gaussianities and a featureless power spectrum. However, there exist a large number of well-motivated theoretical scenarios in which large non-Gaussianties could be generated. In general, in these scenarios the primordial power spectrum will deviate from its standard power law shape. We study, in a model-independent manner, the constraints from future large-scale structure surveys on the local non-Gaussianity parameter fNL when the standard power law assumption for the primordial power spectrum is relaxed. If the analyses are restricted to the large-scale-dependent bias induced in the linear matter power spectrum by non-Gaussianites, the errors on the fNL parameter could be increased by 60% when exploiting data from the future DESI survey, if dealing with only one possible dark matter tracer. In the same context, a nontrivial bias |δ fNL|˜2.5 could be induced if future data are fitted to the wrong primordial power spectrum. Combining all the possible DESI objects slightly ameliorates the problem, as the forecasted errors on fNL would be degraded by 40% when relaxing the assumptions concerning the primordial power spectrum shape. Also, the shift on the non-Gaussianity parameter is reduced in this case, |δ fNL|˜1.6 . The addition of cosmic microwave background priors ensures robust future fNL bounds, as the forecasted errors obtained including these measurements are almost independent on the primordial power spectrum features, and |δ fNL|˜0.2 , close to the standard single-field slow-roll paradigm prediction.

We constrain anisotropic cosmic birefringence using four-point correlations of even-parity E -mode and odd-parity B -mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background measurements made by the POLARization of the Background Radiation (POLARBEAR) experiment in its first season of observations. We find that the anisotropic cosmic birefringence signal from any parity-violating processes is consistent with zero. The Faraday rotation from anisotropic cosmic birefringence can be compared with the equivalent quantity generated by primordial magnetic fields if they existed. The POLARBEAR nondetection translates into a 95% confidence level (C.L.) upper limit of 93 nanogauss (nG) on the amplitude of an equivalent primordial magnetic field inclusive of systematic uncertainties. This four-point correlation constraint on Faraday rotation is about 15 times tighter than the upper limit of 1380 nG inferred from constraining the contribution of Faraday rotation to two-point correlations of B -modes measured by Planck in 2015. Metric perturbations sourced by primordial magnetic fields would also contribute to the B -mode power spectrum. Using the POLARBEAR measurements of the B -mode power spectrum (two-point correlation), we set a 95% C.L. upper limit of 3.9 nG on primordial magnetic fields assuming a flat prior on the field amplitude. This limit is comparable to what was found in the Planck 2015 two-point correlation analysis with both temperature and polarization. We perform a set of systematic error tests and find no evidence for contamination. This work marks the first time that anisotropic cosmic birefringence or primordial magnetic fields have been constrained from the ground at subdegree scales.

A recent calculation shows that the observed energy density in the Unruh state at the future event horizon as seen by a freely falling observer is finite if the observer is released from rest at any positive distance outside the horizon; however, it is getting larger and larger so that it is negatively divergent at the horizon in the limit that the observer starts falling from rest at the horizon, which corresponds to the infinite boost with respect to the freely falling observer at a finite distance from the horizon. In order to resolve some conflicts between the recent calculation and the conventional ones in the well-known literatures, the calculation of the free-fall energy density is revisited and some differences are pointed out.

We provide a simple but robust bound on the primordial curvature perturbation in the range 104 Mpc-1primordial nucleosynthesis but before the redshift z˜2×106 and reheat the photon bath without invoking cosmic microwave background distortions. This acoustic reheating results in the decrease of the baryon-photon ratio. By combining independent measurements probing the nucleosynthesis era and around the recombination epoch, we find an upper bound on the amplitude of the curvature perturbation over the above wave number range as Pζ<0.06. Implications for supermassive black holes are also discussed.

We provide a simple but robust bound on the primordial curvature perturbation in the range 10(4) Mpc(-1)primordial nucleosynthesis but before the redshift z∼2×10(6) and reheat the photon bath without invoking cosmic microwave background distortions. This acoustic reheating results in the decrease of the baryon-photon ratio. By combining independent measurements probing the nucleosynthesis era and around the recombination epoch, we find an upper bound on the amplitude of the curvature perturbation over the above wave number range as P(ζ)<0.06. Implications for supermassive black holes are also discussed. PMID:25148314

The study of the behavior of sessile droplets on solid substrates is not only associated with common everyday phenomena, such as the coffee stain effect, limescale deposits on our bathroom walls , but also very important in many applications such as purification of pharmaceuticals, de-icing of airplanes, inkjet printing and coating applications. In many of these processes, a phase change happens within the drop because of solvent evaporation, temperature changes or chemical reactions, which consequently lead to liquid to solid transitions in the droplets. Here we show that crystallization patterns of evaporating of water drops containing dissolved salts are different from the stains reported for evaporating colloidal suspensions. This happens because during the solvent evaporation, the salts crystallize and grow during the drying. Our results show that the patterns of the resulting salt crystal stains are mainly governed by wetting properties of the emerging crystal as well as the pathway of nucleation and growth, and are independent of the evaporation rate and thermal conductivity of the substrates. PMID:26012481

Evaporation losses from seven reservoirs operated by the Denver Water Department in central Colorado were determined during various periods from 1974 to 1980. The reservoirs studies were Ralston, Cheesman, Antero, Williams Fork, Elevenmile Canyon, Dillon, and Gross. Energy-budget and mass-transfer methods were used to determine evaporation. Class-A pan data also were collected at each reservoir. The energy-budget method was the most accurate of the methods used to determine evaporation. At Ralston, Cheesman, Antero, and Williams Fork Reservoirs the energy-budget method was used to calibrate the mass-transfer coefficients. Calibrated coefficients already were available for Elevenmile Canyon, Dillon, and Gross Reservoirs. Using the calibrated coefficients, long-term mass-transfer evaporation rates were determined. Annual evaporation values were not determined because the instrumentation was not operated for the entire open-water season. Class-A pan data were used to determine pan coefficients for each season at each reservoir. The coefficients varied from season to season and between reservoirs, and the seasonal values ranged from 0.29 to 1.05. (USGS)

The study of the behavior of sessile droplets on solid substrates is not only associated with common everyday phenomena, such as the coffee stain effect, limescale deposits on our bathroom walls , but also very important in many applications such as purification of pharmaceuticals, de-icing of airplanes, inkjet printing and coating applications. In many of these processes, a phase change happens within the drop because of solvent evaporation, temperature changes or chemical reactions, which consequently lead to liquid to solid transitions in the droplets. Here we show that crystallization patterns of evaporating of water drops containing dissolved salts are different from the stains reported for evaporating colloidal suspensions. This happens because during the solvent evaporation, the salts crystallize and grow during the drying. Our results show that the patterns of the resulting salt crystal stains are mainly governed by wetting properties of the emerging crystal as well as the pathway of nucleation and growth, and are independent of the evaporation rate and thermal conductivity of the substrates. PMID:26012481

Notes that attempts to apply research findings based on undifferentiated comparisons between black and white elderly toward the solution of problems faced by black elderly are doomed to ineffectiveness. (Author/AM)

Black psyllium is a weed that grows aggressively throughout the world. The plant was spread with the ... to make medicine. Be careful not to confuse black psyllium with other forms of psyllium including blond ...

Discusses black art as not only an expression of black life but as revolutionary art. It must be collective, functional, and committing. It must also be anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist. (LHW)

This issue of "Now and Then" focuses on black Appalachians, their culture, and their history. It contains local histories, articles, and poems and short stories by Appalachian blacks. Articles include: "A Mountain Artist's Landscape," a profile of artist Rita Bradley by Pat Arnow; "A Part and Apart," a profile of black historian Ed Cabbell by Pat…

The contents of the present volume, designed to bring together in a single place writings by the new black psychologists and other black social and behavioral scientists, are organized in seven parts, as follows: Part I, "Black Psychology: Perspectives," includes articles by Cedric Clark, Wade W. Nobles, Doris P. Mosby, Joseph White, and William…

The black student revolt did not start with the highly publicized activities of the black students at San Francisco State College. The roots of the revolt lie deeply imbedded within the history and structure of the overall black liberation struggle in America. The beginnings of this revolt can be found in the students of Southern Negro colleges in…

This book contains essays which focus on the systems of communication that operate within and between various social segments of Afro-American communities in the United States. The essays are presented under the following headings: (1) "Getting Into It: Black Talk, Black Life and the Academic," (2) "'Talking My Talk': Black Talk Varieties and…

An evaporative refrigerator or cooler comprising a bundle of spaced, porous walled tubes closed at one of their ends and vented to a vacuum at the other end is disclosed. The tube bundle is surrounded by a water jacket having a hot water inlet distribution manifold and a cooled water outlet through a plenum chamber. Hot water is pumped into the jacket to circulate around the tubes, and when this water meets the vacuum existing inside the tubes, it evaporates thereby cooling the water in the jacket. If cooling proceeds to the point where water penetrating or surrounding all or part of the tubes freezes, operation continues with local sublimation of the ice on the tubes while the circulating water attempts to melt the ice. Both sublimation and evaporation may take place simultaneously in different regions of the device.

The Evaporation Duct Communication (EDCOM) project is an effort to provide an alternative ship-to-ship communications channel using the natural environment. A microwave communication link can be used on an over-the-water, over-the-horizon path through the evaporation duct. This report shows how a microwave communication link, operating at a range separation of more than twice the line-of-sight range, can be constructed. This link can achieve about 80-percent availability at a transmission frequency of 14.5 GHz and can be constructed using off-the-shelf RF equipment. Operation of this link will provide the first set of measurements of channel capacity that can be critically dependent on the existence of an oceanic evaporation duct. Construction of this link presents a unique opportunity to study and evaluate an alternative communications channel that can be used to alleviate naval battlegroup communications load.

Observations of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by Rosetta show that the nucleus is bi-lobed, extensively layered, has a low bulk density, a high dust-to-ice mass ratio (implying high porosity), and weak strength except for a thin sintered surface layer. The comet is rich in supervolatiles (CO, CO2, N2), may contain amorphous water ice, and displays little to no signs of aqueous alteration. Lack of phyllosilicates in Stardust samples from Comet 81P/Wild 2 provides further support that comet nuclei did not contain liquid water.These properties differ from those expected for 50-200 km diameter bodies in the primordial disk. We find that thermal processing due to Al-26, combined with collisional compaction, creates a population of medium-sized bodies that are comparably dense, compacted, strong, heavily depleted in supervolatiles, containing little to no amorphous water ice, and that have experienced extensive aqueous alteration. Irregular satellites Phoebe and Himalia are potential representatives of this population. Collisional rubble piles inherit these properties from their parents. We therefore conclude that observed comet nuclei are primordial rubble piles, and not collisional rubble piles.We propose a concurrent comet and TNO formation scenario that is consistent with these observations. We argue that TNOs form due to streaming instabilities at sizes of about 50-400 km and that about 350 of these grow slowly in a low-mass primordial disk to the size of Triton, causing little viscous stirring during growth. We propose a dynamically cold primordial disk, that prevents medium-sized TNOs from breaking into collisional rubble piles, and allows for the survival of primordial rubble-pile comets. We argue that comets form by hierarchical agglomeration out of material that remains after TNO formation. This slow growth is necessary to avoid thermal processing by Al-26, and to allow comet nuclei to incorporate 3 Myr old material from the inner Solar System, found in

Even though the existence of the gravitationally collapsed concentrations of matter in space known as ‘black holes’ is accepted at all educational levels in our society, the basis for the black hole concept is really only the result of approximate calculations done over 40 years ago. The concept of the black hole is an esoteric subject, and recently the mathematical and physical frailties of the concept have come to light in an interesting round of theoretical shuffling. The recent activity in theorizing about black holes began about 10 years ago, when Cambridge University mathematican Stephen Hawking calculated that black holes could become unstable by losing mass and thus ‘evaporate.’ Hawking's results were surprisingly well received, considering the lack of theoretical understanding of the relations between quantum mechanics and relativity. (There is no quantized theory of gravitation, even today.) Nonetheless, his semiclassical calculations implied that the rate of ‘evaporation’ of a black hole would be slower than the rate of degradation of the universe. In fact, based on these and other calculations, the British regard Hawking as ‘the nearest thing we have to a new Einstein’ [New Scientist, Oct. 9, 1980]. Within the last few months, Frank Tipler, provocative mathematical physicist at the University of Texas, has reexamined Hawking's calculations [Physical Review Letters, 45, 941, 1980], concluding, in simple terms, (1) that because of possible vital difficulties in the assumptions, the very concept of black holes could be wrong; (2) that Hawkings' evaporation hypothesis is so efficient that a black hole once created must disappear in less than a second; or (3) that he, Tipler, may be wrong. The latter possibility has been the conclusion of physicist James Bardeen of the University of Washington, who calculated that black hole masses do evaporate but they do so according to Hawking's predicted rate and that Tipler's findings cause only a second

With detections of quasars powered by increasingly massive black holes at increasingly early times in cosmic history over the past decade, there has been correspondingly rapid progress made on the theory of early black hole formation and growth. Here, we review the emerging picture of how the first massive black holes formed from the primordial gas and then grew to supermassive scales. We discuss the initial conditions for the formation of the progenitors of these seed black holes, the factors dictating the initial masses with which they form, and their initial stages of growth via accretion, which may occur at super-Eddington rates. Finally, we briefly discuss how these results connect to large-scale simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes in the first billion years after the Big Bang.

With detections of quasars powered by increasingly massive black holes at increasingly early times in cosmic history over the past decade, there has been correspondingly rapid progress made on the theory of early black hole formation and growth. Here, we review the emerging picture of how the first massive black holes formed from the primordial gas and then grew to supermassive scales. We discuss the initial conditions for the formation of the progenitors of these seed black holes, the factors dictating the initial masses with which they form, and their initial stages of growth via accretion, which may occur atmore » super-Eddington rates. Lastly, we briefly discuss how these results connect to large-scale simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes in the first billion years after the Big Bang.« less

A mechanism of the creation of stellarlike objects in the very early universe, from the QCD phase transition until big bang nucleosynthesis and somewhat later, is studied. It is argued that in the considered process, primordialblack holes with masses above a few solar masses up to superheavy ones could be created. This may explain an early quasar creation with evolved chemistry in surrounding medium and the low mass cutoff of the observed black holes. It is also shown that dense primordial stars can be created at the considered epoch. Such stars could later become very early supernovae and, in particular, high redshift gamma bursters. In a version of the model, some of the created objects can consist of antimatter.

Black hole evaporation is investigated in a (1+1)-dimensional model of quantum gravity. Quantum corrections to the black hole entropy are computed, and the fine-grained entropy of the Hawking radiation is studied. A generalized second law of thermodynamics is formulated, and shown to be valid under suitable conditions. It is also shown that, in this model, a black hole can consume an arbitrarily large amount of information.

Evaporative cooler absorbs heat efficiently under unusual gravitational conditions by using centrifugal force and vapor vortexes to maintain good thermal contact between heat-transfer surface and vaporizable coolant. System useful for cooling electronic or other equipment under low gravity encountered in spacecraft or under multiple-gravity conditions frequently experienced in high-performance airplanes.

A computer model for the design and optimization of the compressor refrigeration cycle especially with respect to dynamic behavior was developed. A steady state version was also developed. The model describing the refrigerant is divided into the evaporation and superheating regions. A mechanism based on empirics corrects the model for the influence of transportation times in the evaporation region. The mass balance of the refrigerant in the superheat region is regarded as quasi-static, because of the small mass of the vapor. The energy balance accounts for a distributed model and is represented by the steady state solution of the partial differential equation which describes this area for the steady conditions. A correction for the dynamical effects was added to this solution, for all influencing parameters, according to the analytical dynamic solution for the case of the evaporation temperature as input parameter. The expansion device model was worked out for the usual type of device in combination with a dry evaporator, the thermostatic expansion valve. Validation tests are described.

To achieve high cell efficiency and reliability, the capillary pumping system for Alkali Metal Thermal to Electric Conversion (AMTEC) must have three key characteristics: (1) very small pores to achieve a high capillary pumping head, (2) high permeability for the flow of liquid sodium to minimize internal losses, and (3) be made from a material that is exceptionally stable at high temperatures in a sodium environment. The authors have developed micromachining techniques to manufacture high performance evaporators for AMTEC cells. The evaporators have been fabricated from stainless steel, molybdenum, and a niobium alloy (Nb-1Zr). The regular, micromachined structure leads to very high capillary pumping head with high permeability for liquid flow. Data from tests performed with common fluids at room temperature characterize the capillary pumping head and permeability of these structures. Three micromachined evaporators have been built into AMTEC cells and operated at temperatures up to 1,100 K. Results from these tests confirm the excellent pumping capabilities of the micromachined evaporators.

Evaporative cooling is a process that is essential in creating Bose-Einstein condensates in dilute atomic gasses. This process has often been simulated based on a model using a truncated Boltzmann distribution. This model assumes that the energy distribution up to the threshold energy can still be described by a Boltzmann distribution: it assumes detailed balance up to the threshold energy. However, the evolution of the distribution function in time is not taken into account. Here we solve the kinetic Boltzmann equation for a gas undergoing evaporative cooling in a harmonic and linear trap in order to determine the evolution of the energy distribution. The magnitude of the discrepancy with the truncated Boltzmannmodel is calculated by including a polynomial expansion of the distribution function. We find that up to 35% fewer particles are found in the high-energy tail of the distribution with respect to the truncated Boltzmann distribution and up to 15% more collisions are needed to reach quantum degeneracy. Supported by a detailed investigation of the particle loss rate at different energies, we conclude that the limited occupation of high-energy states during the evaporation process causes the lowering of the evaporation speed and efficiency.

Data are presented on a new evaporator/sublimator concept using a hollow fiber membrane unit with a high permeability to liquid water. The aim of the program was to obtain a more reliable, lightweight and simpler Extra Vehicular Life Support System (EVLSS) cooling concept than is currently being used.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r < 10(exp -3) at 5 standard deviations. The rich PIXIE data set will also constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. I describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the inflationary signature using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r < 10A{-3) at 5 standard deviations. The rich PIXIE data set will also constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. I describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the inflationary signature using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r less than l0^{-3) at 5 standard deviations. The rich PIXIE data set will also constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. I describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the inflationary signature using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

We place limits on semiclassical fluctuations that might be present in the primordial perturbation spectrum. These can arise if some signatures of pre-inflationary features survive the expansion, or could be created by whatever mechanism ends inflation. We study two possible models for such remnant fluctuations, both of which break the isotropy of CMB on large scales. We first consider a semiclassical fluctuation in one Fourier mode of primordial perturbations. The second scenario we analyze is a semiclassical Gaussian bump somewhere in space. These models are tested with the seven-year WMAP data using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian analysis, and we place limits on these fluctuations. The upper bound for the amplitude of a fluctuation in a single Fourier mode is a ≤ 10{sup −4}, while for the Gaussian bump a ≤ 10{sup −3}.

In successive reports from 2014 to 2015, X-ray repair cross-complementing protein 4 (XRCC4) has been identified as a novel causative gene of primordial dwarfism. XRCC4 is indispensable for non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), the major pathway for repairing DNA double-strand breaks. As NHEJ is essential for V(D)J recombination during lymphocyte development, it is generally believed that abnormalities in XRCC4 cause severe combined immunodeficiency. Contrary to expectations, however, no overt immunodeficiency has been observed in patients with primordial dwarfism harboring XRCC4 mutations. Here, we describe the various XRCC4 mutations that lead to disease and discuss their impact on NHEJ and V(D)J recombination. PMID:27169690

We analyze the effect of variation of fundamental couplings and mass scales on primordial nucleosynthesis in a systematic way. The first step establishes the response of primordial element abundances to the variation of a large number of nuclear physics parameters, including nuclear binding energies. We find a strong influence of the n-p mass difference (for the He4 abundance), of the nucleon mass (for deuterium), and of A=3, 4, 7 binding energies (for He3, Li6, and Li7). A second step relates the nuclear parameters to the parameters of the standard model of particle physics. The deuterium, and, above all, Li7 abundances depend strongly on the average light quark mass m^≡(mu+md)/2. We calculate the behavior of abundances when variations of fundamental parameters obey relations arising from grand unification. We also discuss the possibility of a substantial shift in the lithium abundance while the deuterium and He4 abundances are only weakly affected.

We propose a primordial-origin model for composite configurations of global magnetic fields in spiral galaxies. We show that a uniform tilted magnetic field wound up into a rotating disk galaxy can evolve into composite magnetic configurations comprising bisymmetric spiral (S = BSS), axisymmetric spiral (A = ASS), plane-reversed spiral (PR), and/or ring (R) fields in the disk, and vertical (V) fields in the center. By MHD simulations we show that these composite galactic fields are indeed created from a weak primordial uniform field, and that different configurations can co-exist in the same galaxy. We show that spiral fields trigger the growth of two-armed gaseous arms. The centrally accumulated vertical fields are twisted and produce a jet toward the halo. We found that the more vertical was the initial uniform field, the stronger was the formed magnetic field in the galactic disk.

The space density of life-bearing primordial planets in the solar vicinity may amount to ˜8.1×104 pc-3 giving total of ˜1014 throughout the entire galactic disk. Initially dominated by H2 these planets are stripped of their hydrogen mantles when the ambient radiation temperature exceeds 3 K as they fall from the galactic halo to the mid-plane of the galaxy. The zodiacal cloud in our solar system encounters a primordial planet once every 26 My (on our estimate) thus intercepting an average mass of 103 tonnes of interplanetary dust on each occasion. If the dust included microbial material that originated on Earth and was scattered via impacts or cometary sublimation into the zodiacal cloud, this process offers a way by which evolved genes from Earth life could become dispersed through the galaxy.

Future galaxy redshift surveys aim at probing the clustering of the cosmic large-scale structure with unprecedented accuracy, thus complementing cosmic microwave background experiments in the quest to deliver the most precise and accurate picture ever of our Universe. Analyses of such measurements are usually performed within the context of the so-called vanilla Λ CDM model—the six-parameter phenomenological model which, for instance, emerges from best fits against the recent data obtained by the Planck satellite. Here, we show that such an approach is prone to subtle systematics when the Gaussianity of primordial fluctuations is concerned. In particular, we demonstrate that, if we neglect even a tiny amount of primordial non-Gaussianity—fully consistent with current limits—we shall introduce spurious biases in the reconstruction of cosmological parameters. This is a serious issue that must be properly accounted for in view of accurate (as well as precise) cosmology.

A precise calculation is done of the primordial nucleosynthesis constraint on the energy per length of ordinary and superconducting cosmic strings. A general formula is provided for the constraint on the string tension for ordinary strings. Using the current values for the various parameters that describe the evolution of loops, the constraint for ordinary strings is G mu less than 2.2 x 10 to the minus 5 power. Our constraint is weaker than previously quoted limits by a factor of approximately 5. For superconducting loops, with currents generated by primordial magnetic fields, the constraint can be less or more stringent than this limit, depending on the strength of the magnetic field. It is also found in this case that there is a negligible amount of entropy production if the electromagnetic radiation from strings thermalizes with the radiation background.

At first glance, the (indirect) measurement of primordial tensor modes by the BICEP2 Collaboration supports an inflationary paradigm for early universe cosmology together with quantum vacuum fluctuations (aka gravitons) as the origin of the spectrum. In this paper, we argue the observed signal may instead be a signature of semiclassical sources of perturbations during inflation. In this scenario, despite a large tensor-to-scalar ratio r ≃ 0.2, it may be possible to write an effective field theory (EFT) of a rolling scalar field without super-Planckian excursions. If the results from BICEP2 withstand further scrutiny, measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity with large scale structure surveys, and direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs) with the new generation of observatories, will be of paramount importance to elucidate the (quantum) origin of structure in the universe.

We present a new mechanism for generating primordial statistical anisotropy of curvature perturbations. We introduce a vector field which has a non-minimal kinetic term and couples with a waterfall field in a hybrid inflation model. In such a system, the vector field gives fluctuations of the end of inflation and hence induces a subcomponent of curvature perturbations. Since the vector has a preferred direction, the statistical anisotropy could appear in the fluctuations. We present the explicit formula for the statistical anisotropy in the primordial power spectrum and the bispectrum of curvature perturbations. Interestingly, there is the possibility that the statistical anisotropy does not appear in the power spectrum but does appear in the bispectrum. We also find that the statistical anisotropy provides the shape dependence to the bispectrum.

Capillary bridges are usually formed by a small liquid volume in confined space between two solid surfaces and particularly they have lower internal pressure than 1 atm at femtoliter scales. Femtoliter capillary bridges exhibit rapid evaporation rates. To quantify detailed evaporation kinetics of femtoliter bridges, we present a feasible protocol to directly visualize femtoliter water bridges that evaporate in still air between a microsphere and a flat substrate by utilizing transmission X-ray microscopy. Precise measurements of evaporation kinetics for water bridges indicate that lower water pressure than 1 atm can significantly decelerate evaporation by suppression of vapor diffusion. This finding would provide a consensus to understand evaporation of ultrasmall capillary bridges.

Coloured relics servived after hadronization might have given birth to dark matter and dark energy. Theoretical ideas to solve mystery of cosmic acceleration, its origin and its status with reference to recent past are of much interest and are being proposed by many workers. In the present paper, we present a critical review of work done to understand the earliest appearance of dark matter and dark energy in the scenario of primordial quark gluon plasma (QGP) phase after Big Bang.

In inflationary models, the predicted amplitude of primordial density perturbations Q is much larger than the observed value ({approx}10{sup -5}) for natural choices of parameters. To explain the requisite exponential fine-tuning, anthropic selection is often invoked, especially in cases where microphysics is expected to produce a complex energy landscape. By contrast, we find examples of ekpyrotic models based on heterotic M theory for which dynamical selection naturally favors the observed value of Q.

We examine the stability of three key components needed to establish an RNA World under a range of potential conditions present on the early earth. The stability of ribose, cytosine, and the phosphodiester bond are estimated at different pH values and temperatures by extrapolating available experimental data. The conditions we have chosen range from highly acidic or alkaline hydrothermal vents, to the milder conditions in a primordial ocean at a range of atmospheric CO2 partial pressures.

Constraints on the main cosmological parameters using cosmic microwave background (CMB) or large scale structure data are usually based on the power-law assumption of the primordial power spectrum (PPS). However, in the absence of a preferred model for the early Universe, this raises a concern that current cosmological parameter estimates are strongly prejudiced by the assumed power-law form of PPS. In this paper, for the first time, we perform cosmological parameter estimation allowing the free form of the primordial spectrum. This is in fact the most general approach to estimate cosmological parameters without assuming any particular form for the primordial spectrum. We use a direct reconstruction of the PPS for any point in the cosmological parameter space using the recently modified Richardson-Lucy algorithm; however, other alternative reconstruction methods could be used for this purpose as well. We use WMAP 9 year data in our analysis considering the CMB lensing effect, and we report, for the first time, that the flat spatial universe with no cosmological constant is ruled out by more than a 4σ confidence limit without assuming any particular form of the primordial spectrum. This would be probably the most robust indication for dark energy using CMB data alone. Our results on the estimated cosmological parameters show that higher values of the baryonic and matter density and a lower value of the Hubble parameter (in comparison to the estimated values by assuming power-law PPS) is preferred by the data. However, the estimated cosmological parameters by assuming a free form of the PPS have an overlap at 1σ confidence level with the estimated values assuming the power-law form of PPS.

We study the primordial Universe in a cosmological model where inflation is driven by a fluid with a polytropic equation of state . We calculate the dynamics of the scalar factor and build a Universe with constant density at the origin. We also find the equivalent scalar field that could create such an equation of state and calculate the corresponding slow-roll parameters. We calculate the scalar perturbations, the scalar power spectrum, and the spectral index.

Experimental support is given for a model concerning the origin of a primordial transport system. The model is based on the facilitated diffusion of amino acids stimulated by aliphatic aldehyde carriers and sugars stimulated by aliphatic amine carriers. The lipid-soluble diffusing species is the Schiff base. The possible role of this simple transport system in the origin of an early protocell is discussed.

Searching for the signal of primordial gravitational waves in the B-modes (BB) power spectrum is one of the key scientific aims of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments. However, this could be easily contaminated by several foreground issues, such as the interstellar dust grains and the galactic cyclotron electrons. In this paper we study another mechanism, the cosmic birefringence, which can be introduced by a CPT-violating interaction between CMB photons and an external scalar field. Such kind of interaction could give rise to the rotation of the linear polarization state of CMB photons, and consequently induce the CMB BB power spectrum, which could mimic the signal of primordial gravitational waves at large scales. With the recently released polarization data of BICEP2 and the joint analysis data of BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck, we perform a global fitting analysis on constraining the tensor-to-scalar ratio r by considering the polarization rotation angle [ α (n ˆ)] which can be separated into a background isotropic part [ α bar ] and a small anisotropic part [ Δα (n ˆ)]. Since the data of BICEP2 and Keck Array experiments have already been corrected by using the "self-calibration" method, here we mainly focus on the effects from the anisotropies of CMB polarization rotation angle. We find that including Δα (n ˆ) in the analysis could slightly weaken the constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r, when using current CMB polarization measurements. We also simulate the mock CMB data with the BICEP3-like sensitivity. Very interestingly, we find that if the effects of the anisotropic polarization rotation angle could not be taken into account properly in the analysis, the constraints on r will be dramatically biased. This implies that we need to break the degeneracy between the anisotropies of the CMB polarization rotation angle and the CMB primordial tensor perturbations, in order to measure the signal of primordial gravitational

Experimental investigation of the key question of the origin of life concerning the chronological order in the primordial sequence of nucleic acid, protein, and cell. It is pointed out that, when viewed against the background of experiments on the selective reaction of basic homopolyamine acids with mononucleotides (Lacey and Pruitt, 1969; Woese, 1968), the experiments made help to establish a basis for understanding how information originally flowed from proteins to nucleic acids.

We study the constraining power on primordial non-Gaussianity of future surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe for both near-term surveys (such as the Dark Energy Survey - DES) as well as longer term projects such as Euclid and WFIRST. Specifically we perform a Fisher matrix analysis forecast for such surveys, using DES-like and Euclid-like configurations as examples, and take account of any expected photometric and spectroscopic data. We focus on two-point statistics and consider three observables: the 3D galaxy power spectrum in redshift space, the angular galaxy power spectrum and the projected weak-lensing shear power spectrum. We study the effects of adding a few extra parameters to the basic Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) set. We include the two standard parameters to model the current value for the dark-energy equation of state and its time derivative, w0, wa, and we account for the possibility of primordial non-Gaussianity of the local, equilateral and orthogonal types, of parameter fNL and, optionally, of spectral index ?. We present forecasted constraints on these parameters using the different observational probes. We show that accounting for models that include primordial non-Gaussianity does not degrade the constraint on the standard ΛCDM set nor on the dark-energy equation of state. By combining the weak-lensing data and the information on projected galaxy clustering, consistently including all two-point functions and their covariance, we find forecasted marginalized errors σ(fNL) ˜ 3, ? from a Euclid-like survey for the local shape of primordial non-Gaussianity, while the orthogonal and equilateral constraints are weakened for the galaxy clustering case, due to the weaker scale dependence of the bias. In the lensing case, the constraints remain instead similar in all configurations.

Coloured relics servived after hadronization might have given birth to dark matter and dark energy. Theoretical ideas to solve mystery of cosmic acceleration, its origin and its status with reference to recent past are of much interest and are being proposed by many workers. In the present paper, we present a critical review of work done to understand the earliest appearance of dark matter and dark energy in the scenario of primordial quark gluon plasma (QGP) phase after Big Bang.

Primordial comets are comets made of Big Bang synthesized materials—water, ammonium, and carbon ices. These are the basic elements for life, so that these comets can be colonized by cyanobacteria that grow and bioengineer it for life dispersal. In addition, should they exist in large enough quantities, they would easily satisfy the qualifications for dark matter: low albedo with low visibility, gravitationally femtolensing, galactic negative viscosity, early galaxy formation seeds, and a self-interaction providing cosmic structure. The major arguments against their existence are the absence of metals (elements heavier than He) in ancient Population III stars, and the stringent requirements put on the Big Bang (BB) baryonic density by the BB nucleosynthesis (BBN) models. We argue that CI chondrites, hyperbolic comets, and carbon-enriched Pop III stars are all evidence for primordial comets. The BBN models provide the greater obstacle, but we argue that they crucially omit the magnetic field in their homogeneous, isotropic, "ideal baryon gas" model. Should large magnetic fields exist, not only would they undermine the 1-D models, but if their magnitude exceeds some critical field/density ratio, then the neutrino interacts with the fields, changing the equilibrium ratio of protons to neutrons. Since BBN models are strongly dependent on this ratio, magnetic fields have the potential to radically change the production of C, N, and O (CNO) to produce primordial comets. Then the universe from the earliest moments is not only seeded for galaxy formation, but it is seeded with the ingredients for life.

Precise measurements of the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background enable us to do an accurate study on the form of the primordial power spectrum for a given set of cosmological parameters. In a previous paper [A. Shafieloo and T. Souradeep, Phys. Rev. D 70, 043523 (2004).], we implemented an improved (error sensitive) Richardson-Lucy deconvolution algorithm on the measured angular power spectrum from the first year of WMAP data to determine the primordial power spectrum assuming a concordance cosmological model. This recovered spectrum has a likelihood far better than a scale invariant, or, 'best fit' scale free spectra ({delta}lnL{approx_equal}25 with respect to the Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum, and, {delta}lnL{approx_equal}11 with respect to the power law spectrum with n{sub s}=0.95). In this paper we use the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to decompose the local features of the recovered spectrum individually to study their effect and significance on the recovered angular power spectrum and hence the likelihood. We show that besides the infrared cutoff at the horizon scale, the associated features of the primordial power spectrum around the horizon have a significant effect on improving the likelihood. The strong features are localized at the horizon scale.

Precise measurements of the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background enable us to do an accurate study on the form of the primordial power spectrum for a given set of cosmological parameters. In a previous paper [A. Shafieloo and T. Souradeep, Phys. Rev. DPRVDAQ0556-2821 70, 043523 (2004).10.1103/PhysRevD.70.043523], we implemented an improved (error sensitive) Richardson-Lucy deconvolution algorithm on the measured angular power spectrum from the first year of WMAP data to determine the primordial power spectrum assuming a concordance cosmological model. This recovered spectrum has a likelihood far better than a scale invariant, or, “best fit” scale free spectra (Δln⁡L≈25 with respect to the Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum, and, Δln⁡L≈11 with respect to the power law spectrum with ns=0.95). In this paper we use the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to decompose the local features of the recovered spectrum individually to study their effect and significance on the recovered angular power spectrum and hence the likelihood. We show that besides the infrared cutoff at the horizon scale, the associated features of the primordial power spectrum around the horizon have a significant effect on improving the likelihood. The strong features are localized at the horizon scale.

The observables of the perturbed universe, cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy and large structures depend on a set of cosmological parameters, as well as the assumed nature of primordial perturbations. In particular, the shape of the primordial power spectrum (PPS) is, at best, a well-motivated assumption. It is known that the assumed functional form of the PPS in cosmological parameter estimation can affect the best-fit-parameters and their relative confidence limits. In this paper, we demonstrate that a specific assumed form actually drives the best-fit parameters into distinct basins of likelihood in the space of cosmological parameters where the likelihood resists improvement via modifications to the PPS. The regions where considerably better likelihoods are obtained allowing free-form PPS lie outside these basins. In the absence of a preferred model of inflation, this raises a concern that current cosmological parameter estimates are strongly prejudiced by the assumed form of PPS. Our results strongly motivate approaches toward simultaneous estimation of the cosmological parameters and the shape of the primordial spectrum from upcoming cosmological data. It is equally important for theorists to keep an open mind towards early universe scenarios that produce features in the PPS.

Measurements of the non-Gaussianity of the primordial density field have the power to considerably improve our understanding of the physics of inflation. Indeed, if we can increase the precision of current measurements by an order of magnitude, a null-detection would rule out many classes of scenarios for generating primordial fluctuations. Large-scale galaxy redshift surveys represent experiments that hold the promise to realise this goal. Thus, we model the galaxy bispectrum and forecast the accuracy with which it will probe the parameter fNL, which represents the degree of primordial local-type non Gaussianity. Specifically, we address the problem of modelling redshift space distortions (RSD) in the tree-level galaxy bispectrum including fNL. We find novel contributions associated with RSD, with the characteristic large scale amplification induced by local-type non-Gaussianity. These RSD effects must be properly accounted for in order to obtain un-biased measurements of fNL from the galaxy bispectrum. We propose an analytic template for the monopole which can be used to fit against data on large scales, extending models used in the recent measurements. Finally, we perform idealised forecasts on σfNL—the accuracy of the determination of local non-linear parameter fNL—from measurements of the galaxy bispectrum. Our findings suggest that current surveys can in principle provide fNL constraints competitive with Planck, and future surveys could improve them further.

Primordial magnetic fields generated in the early Universe are subject of considerable investigation, and observational limits on their strength are required to constrain the theory. Due to their impact on the reionization process, the strength of primordial fields can be limited using the latest data on reionization and the observed UV luminosity function of high-redshift galaxies. Given the steep faint-end slope of the luminosity function, faint galaxies contribute substantial ionizing photons, and the low-luminosity cut-off has an impact on the total budget thereof. Magnetic pressure from primordial fields affects such cut-off by preventing collapse in haloes with mass below 1010 M?, with B0 the comoving field strength. In this Letter, the implications of these effects are consistently incorporated in a simplified model for reionization, and the uncertainties due to the cosmological parameters, the reionization parameters and the observed UV luminosity function are addressed. We show that the observed ionization degree at z˜ 7 leads to the strongest upper limit of B0≲ 2-3 nG. Stronger limits could follow from measurements of high ionization degree at z > 7.

There have been lots of debates about the final fate of an evaporatingblack hole and the singularity hidden by an event horizon in quantum gravity. However, on general grounds, one may argue that a black hole stops radiation at the Planck mass (ħc / G) 1 / 2 ∼10-5 g, where the radiated energy is comparable to the black hole's mass. And also, it has been argued that there would be a wormhole-like structure, known as "spacetime foam", due to large fluctuations below the Planck length (ħG /c3) 1 / 2 ∼10-33 cm. In this paper, as an explicit example, we consider an exact classical solution which represents nicely those two properties in a recently proposed quantum gravity model based on different scaling dimensions between space and time coordinates. The solution, called "Black Wormhole", consists of two different states, depending on its mass parameter M and an IR parameter ω: For the black hole state (with ωM2 > 1 / 2), a non-traversable wormhole occupies the interior region of the black hole around the singularity at the origin, whereas for the wormhole state (with ωM2 < 1 / 2), the interior wormhole is exposed to an outside observer as the black hole horizon is disappearing from evaporation. The black hole state becomes thermodynamically stable as it approaches the merging point where the interior wormhole throat and the black hole horizon merges, and the Hawking temperature vanishes at the exact merge point (with ωM2 = 1 / 2). This solution suggests the "Generalized Cosmic Censorship" by the existence of a wormhole-like structure which protects the naked singularity even after the black hole evaporation. One could understand the would-be wormhole inside the black hole horizon as the result of microscopic wormholes created by "negative" energy quanta which have entered the black hole horizon in Hawking radiation process; the quantum black hole could be a wormhole factory! It is found that this speculative picture may be consistent with the recent " ER

We analyze time evolution of a spherically symmetric collapsing matter from a point of view that black holes evaporate by nature. We first consider a spherical thin shell that falls in the metric of an evaporating Schwarzschild black hole of which the radius a (t ) decreases in time. The important point is that the shell can never reach a (t ) but it approaches a (t )-a (t )d/a (t ) d t . This situation holds at any radius because the motion of a shell in a spherically symmetric system is not affected by the outside. In this way, we find that the collapsing matter evaporates without forming a horizon. Nevertheless, a Hawking-like radiation is created in the metric, and the object looks the same as a conventional black hole from the outside. We then discuss how the information of the matter is recovered. We also consider a black hole that is adiabatically grown in the heat bath and obtain the interior metric. We show that it is the self-consistent solution of Gμ ν=8 π G ⟨Tμ ν⟩ and that the four-dimensional Weyl anomaly induces the radiation and a strong angular pressure. Finally, we analyze the internal structures of the charged and the slowly rotating black holes.

The existence of a sizable, O(10{sup -10}-10{sup -9} G), cosmological magnetic field in the early Universe has been postulated as a necessary step in certain formation scenarios for the large-scale O({mu}G) magnetic fields found in galaxies and galaxy clusters. If this field exists then it may induce significant mixing between photons and axion-like particles (ALPs) in the early Universe. The resonant conversion of photons into ALPs in a primordial magnetic field has been studied elsewhere by Mirizzi, Redondo and Sigl (2009). Here we consider the nonresonant mixing between photons and scalar ALPs with masses much less than the plasma frequency along the path, with specific reference to the chameleon scalar field model. The mixing would alter the intensity and polarization state of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. We find that the average modification to the CMB polarization modes is negligible. However the average modification to the CMB intensity spectrum is more significant and we compare this to high-precision measurements of the CMB monopole made by the far infrared absolute spectrophotometer on board the COBE satellite. The resulting 95% confidence limit on the scalar-photon conversion probability in the primordial field (at 100 GHz) is P{sub {gamma}{r_reversible}{phi}primordial magnetic field. Taking the upper bound on the strength of the primordial magnetic field derived from the CMB power spectra, B{sub {lambda}{<=}5}.0x10{sup -9} G, this would imply an upper bound on the photon-scalar coupling strength in the range g{sub eff} < or approx. 7.14x10{sup -13} GeV{sup -1} to g{sub eff} < or approx. 9.20x10{sup -14} GeV{sup -1}, depending on the power spectrum of the primordial magnetic field.

Black holes are considered as objects that can reveal quantum aspects of spacetime. Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is a theory that propose a way to model the quantum spacetime behavior revealed by a black hole. One recent prediction of this theory is the existence of sub-Planckian black holes, which have the interesting property of self-duality. This property removes the black hole singularity and replaces it with another asymptotically flat region. In this work, we obtain the thermodynamical properties of this kind of black holes, called self-dual black holes, using the Hamilton-Jacobi version of the tunneling formalism. Moreover, using the tools of the tunneling approach, we investigate the emission spectrum of self-dual black holes, and investigate if some information about the black hole initial state can be recovered during the evaporation process. Back-reaction effects are included.

The isotopic fluxes of evaporation from a water surface are typically computed using a one-dimensional model, originally conceptualized by Craig and Gordon (1965) and further developed and adapted to different natural settings (such as transpiration, open surface evaporation, etc.) by various investigators. These models have two distinguishing characteristics. First, there exists a laminar layer where molecular diffusion away from the water-air interface causes kinetic isotopic fractionation. The magnitude of this fractionation is controlled by the diffusion/transport coefficient of each vapor isotopologue in air and their concentration gradients, the latter being controlled by relative humidity, isotopic ratios of ambient air, and turbulent conditions (such as wind and surface roughness). Second, the horizontal variations are ignored. In particular, the effect of horizontal advection on isotopic variations in the ambient air is not considered. The research reported here addresses the effects of relinquishing the simplifying assumptions in both of these areas. We developed a model, in which the simplification of a purely laminar layer is dropped. Instead, we express the vertical transport coefficient as the sum of the molecular diffusivity, that differs for each water isotopologue, and the turbulent diffusivity that increases linearly with height but does not vary among water isotopologues. With this model, the kinetic isotopic effect reduces with height in the vicinity of the water surface, and the net isotopic fractionation through the boundary layer can be integrated. The advantage of this conceptualization is that the magnitude of kinetic isotopic fractionation can be assessed directly with changing environmental conditions, such as humidity and wind speed, rather than approximated by discontinuous empirical functions of the environmental conditions, as in the conventional models mentioned above. To address the effect of lateral heterogeneity, we expanded the

Studies quantifying evaporation from permeable pavement systems are limited to a few laboratory studies and one field application. This research quantifies evaporation for a larger-scale field application by measuring the water balance from lined permeable pavement sections. Th...

Field performance data for four tomato product evaporators are presented and analyzed. Steam and feed flow rates along with steam economies were measured and are compared to steady state theoretical evaporator models.

According to the Big Bang Theory as we go back in time the Universe becomes progressively hotter and denser. This leads us to believe that the early Universe was filled with hot plasma of elementary particles. Among many questions concerning this phase of history of the Universe there are questions of existence and fate of magnetic monopoles and primordialblack holes. Static solution of Einstein-Yang-Mills system may be used as a toy model for such a black hole. Using methods of field theory we will show that its existence and regularity depend crucially on the presence of fermions around it.

Evaporative cooling is an effective and energy efficient way to rapidly remove heat from a system. Specifically, evaporative cooling in microfluidic channels can provide a cost-effective solution for the cooling of electronic devices and chemical reactors. Here we present microfluidic devices fabricated by using soft-lithography techniques to form simple fluidic junctions between channels carrying refrigerant and channels carrying N2 gas. The effects of channel geometry and delivery pressure on the performance of refrigeration through vaporization of acetone, isopropyl alcohol, and ethyl ether were characterized. By varying gas inlet pressures, refrigerants, and angles of the microfluidic junctions, optimal cooling conditions were found. Refrigeration rates in excess of 40°C/s were measured, and long lasting subzero cooling in the junction could be observed.

An improved method for retaining radioactive iodine in aqueous waste solutions during volume reduction is disclosed. The method applies to evaporative volume reduction processes whereby the decontaminated (evaporated) water can be returned safely to the environment. The method generally comprises isotopically diluting the waste solution with a nonradioactive iodide and maintaining the solution at a high pH during evaporation.

One of the methods for on-site disposal of wastewater from individual homes is by evaporation. Two types of evaporative disposal systems have been investigated in this study; evapo-transpiration (ET) beds and mechanical evaporation units. Twenty nine test lysimeters of 0.22 cubic...

Evaporation is a key process in land-climate interactions, not only because it directly regulates the hydrological cycle, but also because it contributes to the Earth's energy balance. Due to its feedbacks on large-scale water processes and its impact on the dynamics of the atmosphere, it has been considered as a driver of droughts and heatwaves1-3. While evaporation from ocean surfaces is likely to increase with rising temperatures, it is unclear whether evapotranspiration from land surfaces could similarly increase, due to possible limitations imposed by soil moisture and vegetation physiology4. Observations suggest that groundwater (hereafter GW) has an important role in hydrological budgets and soil moisture variability in many regions, supplying moisture for evapotranspiration during dry seasons5, 6. Although modeling studies suggest that GW is often close enough to the surface to interact with the atmosphere7, 8, the soil water storage is often underestimated by land surface models. This is most likely due to neglecting the lateral movement of water from topographically higher altitudes to valley bottoms and its convergence close to the land surface, as well as the upward movement of water in the capillary fringe.The focus of this study is to understand where and when GW may significantly enhance the availability of soil water for evapotranspiration. We also quantified the potential contribution of GW to evapotranspiration in the areas where GW is a major supply. We used the global network of eddy covariance observations9 (FLUXNET) along with global modeled GW depth10 and GLEAM ET model estimates11 to address the current gap in modelling ET due to neglecting GW supply. Having identified areas where GW is tightly coupled with the atmosphere through evaporation processes, the study provides the basis to examine the "air conditioning effect" of GW and test the idea if GW enhances evaporation to the extent that leads to a cooler temperatures and wetter climates.

Progress in the development of a study of the application of the technologies of mechanical vapor recompression and falling film evaporation as applied to the beet sugar industry is reported. Progress is reported in the following areas: technical literature search; report on visit to European factories using these technologies; energy balance studies of factories offered by the industry as candidates for the demonstration plants; and report on energy balance studies and the recommendations as to the site for the demonstration plant.

Drying suspensions often leave behind complex patterns of particulates, as might be seen in the coffee stains on a table. Here, we consider the dynamics of periodic band or uniform solid film formation on a vertical plate suspended partially in a drying colloidal solution. Direct observations allow us to visualize the dynamics of band and film deposition, where both are made of multiple layers of close packed particles. We further see that there is a transition between banding and filming when the colloidal concentration is varied. A minimal theory of the liquid meniscus motion along the plate reveals the dynamics of the banding and its transition to the filming as a function of the ratio of deposition and evaporation rates. We also provide a complementary multiphase model of colloids dissolved in the liquid, which couples the inhomogeneous evaporation at the evolving meniscus to the fluid and particulate flows and the transition from a dilute suspension to a porous plug. This allows us to determine the concentration dependence of the bandwidth and the deposition rate. Together, our findings allow for the control of drying-induced patterning as a function of the colloidal concentration and evaporation rate.

This article describes how nonmagnetic impeller flow sensors help improve efficiency of open evaporative cooling water systems. Open evaporative cooling water systems provide economical heat sinks with efficient reuse of water. However, their water loss through evaporation, though minimal, results in an increased concentration of dissolved and suspended impurities in the remaining water. To deconcentrate the water and minimize impurities, the system water is bled off and replaced with fresh makeup water. Bleedoff helps, but to maintain efficient operation and protect the system from water-related catastrophes, various chemical treatments are required for the control of corrosion, deposition, and biological growth. Efficient addition of makeup water and chemical additives can be achieved by a system design employing multiple data points, using flow sensors having high reproducibility for good trend data. In such a system, nonmagnetic flow sensors provide 1% accuracy and excellent reproducibility. In addition, their low initial cost and long service life mean that they can be used cost effectively at multiple data collection points to eliminate approximations.

We study possible back-reaction and quantum gravity effects in the evaporation of black holes which could be produced at the LHC through a modification of the Hawking emission. The corrections are phenomenologically taken into account by employing a modified relation between the black hole mass and temperature. The usual assumption that black holes explode around 1 TeV is also released, and the evaporation process is extended to (possibly much) smaller final masses. We show that these effects could be observable for black holes produced with a relatively large mass and should therefore be taken into account when simulating micro-black hole events for the experiments planned at the LHC.

In this contribution, we review our efforts toward understanding the typical mass-scale of primordial stars. Our direct numerical simulations show that, in both of Population III.1 and III.2 cases, strong UV stellar radiative feedback terminatesmass accretion onto a protostar.AnHII region formed around the protostar very dynamically expands throughout the gas accreting envelope, which cuts off the gas supply to a circumstellar disk. The disk is exposed to the stellar UV radiation and loses its mass by photoevaporation. The derived final masses are 43 Stellar Mass and 17 Stellar Mass in our fiducial Population III.1 and III.2 cases. Much more massive stars should form in other exceptional conditions. In atomic-cooling halos where H2 molecules are dissociated, for instance, a protostar grows via very rapid mass accretion with the rates M* approx. 0.1 - 1 Stellar Mass/yr. Our newstellar evolution calculations show that the protostar significantly inflates and never contracts to reach the ZAMS stage in this case. Such the "supergiant protostars" have very low UV luminosity, which results in weak radiative feedback against the accretion flow. In the early universe, supermassive stars formed through this process might provide massive seeds of supermassive black holes.

The essays in this book examine some of the major issues affecting the behavior and status of black men in the United States. The volume is divided into four sections. Part one compares black and white men on such indicators as sex ratio, age distribution, marital and family status, educational attainment, employment, income, social and political…

Results of an experimental investigation of flash evaporation from turbulent planar and axisymmetric water jets are reported. In the range of jet thicknesses tested, for planar jets, due to shattering, evaporation is found to be nearly independent of the jet thickness. Evaporation from the planar jets was found to be dependent on the initial level of turbulence in the water supply manifold. An approximate analysis to model the evaporation process based on the physical phenomena and experimental observations is outlined. Comparisons between the experimental data and analytical predictions of the liquid temperature variation along the jet are included. Use of screens in the water jet are shown to be effective for enhancing evaporation.

As fossil fuel resources continue to deplete, research for alternate power sources continues to develop. One of these alternate technologies is fuel cells. They are a practical fuel source able to provide significant amounts of power for applications from laptops to automobiles and their only byproduct is water. However, although this technology is over a century old and NASA has been working with it since the early 1960 s there is still room for improvement. The research I am involved in at NASA's Glenn Research Center is focusing on what is called a regenerative fuel cell system. The unique characteristic of this type of system is that it used an outside power source to create electrolysis of the water it produces and it then reuses the hydrogen and oxygen to continue producing power. The advantage of this type of system is that, for example, on space missions it can use solar power to recharge its gas supplies between periods when the object being orbited blocks out the sun. This particular system however is far from completion. This is because of the many components that are required to make up a fuel cell that need to be tested individually. The specific part of the system that is being worked on this summer of 2004 is the cooling system. The fuel cell stack, that is the part that actually creates the power, also produces a lot of heat. When not properly cooled, it has been known to cause fires which, needless to say are not conducive to the type of power that is trying to be created. In order to cool the fuel cell stack in this system we are developing a heat pipe cooling system. One of the main components of a heat pipe cooling system is what is known as the evaporator, and that is what happens to be the part of the system we are developing this summer. In most heat pipe systems the evaporator is a tube in which the working fluid is cooled and then re-circulated through the system to absorb more heat energy from the fuel cell stack. For this system, instead

Primordial or big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is one of the three historical strong evidences for the big bang model. The recent results by the Planck satellite mission have slightly changed the estimate of the baryonic density compared to the previous WMAP analysis. This article updates the BBN predictions for the light elements using the cosmological parameters determined by Planck, as well as an improvement of the nuclear network and new spectroscopic observations. There is a slight lowering of the primordial Li/H abundance, however, this lithium value still remains typically 3 times larger than its observed spectroscopic abundance in halo stars of the Galaxy. According to the importance of this ''lithium problem{sup ,} we trace the small changes in its BBN calculated abundance following updates of the baryonic density, neutron lifetime and networks. In addition, for the first time, we provide confidence limits for the production of {sup 6}Li, {sup 9}Be, {sup 11}B and CNO, resulting from our extensive Monte Carlo calculation with our extended network. A specific focus is cast on CNO primordial production. Considering uncertainties on the nuclear rates around the CNO formation, we obtain CNO/H ≈ (5-30)×10{sup -15}. We further improve this estimate by analyzing correlations between yields and reaction rates and identified new influential reaction rates. These uncertain rates, if simultaneously varied could lead to a significant increase of CNO production: CNO/H∼10{sup -13}. This result is important for the study of population III star formation during the dark ages.

The B-mode polarization spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) may be the smoking gun of not only the primordial tensor mode but also of the primordial vector mode. If there exist nonzero vector-mode metric perturbations in the early Universe, they are known to be supported by anisotropic stress fluctuations of free-streaming particles such as neutrinos, and to create characteristic signatures on both the CMB temperature, E-mode, and B-mode polarization anisotropies. We place constraints on the properties of the primordial vector mode characterized by the vector-to-scalar ratio r{sub v} and the spectral index n{sub v} of the vector-shear power spectrum, from the Planck and BICEP2 B-mode data. We find that, for scale-invariant initial spectra, the ΛCDM model including the vector mode fits the data better than the model including the tensor mode. The difference in χ{sup 2} between the vector and tensor models is Δχ{sup 2} = 3.294, because, on large scales the vector mode generates smaller temperature fluctuations than the tensor mode, which is preferred for the data. In contrast, the tensor mode can fit the data set equally well if we allow a significantly blue-tilted spectrum. We find that the best-fitting tensor mode has a large blue tilt and leads to an indistinct reionization bump on larger angular scales. The slightly red-tilted vector mode supported by the current data set can also create O(10{sup -22})-Gauss magnetic fields at cosmological recombination. Our constraints should motivate research that considers models of the early Universe that involve the vector mode.

The Planck nominal mission cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps yield unprecedented constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). Using three optimal bispectrum estimators, separable template-fitting (KSW), binned, and modal, we obtain consistent values for the primordial local, equilateral, and orthogonal bispectrum amplitudes, quoting as our final result fNLlocal = 2.7 ± 5.8, fNLequil = -42 ± 75, and fNLorth = -25 ± 39 (68% CL statistical). Non-Gaussianity is detected in the data; using skew-Cℓ statistics we find a nonzero bispectrum from residual point sources, and the integrated-Sachs-Wolfe-lensing bispectrum at a level expected in the ΛCDM scenario. The results are based on comprehensive cross-validation of these estimators on Gaussian and non-Gaussian simulations, are stable across component separation techniques, pass an extensive suite of tests, and are confirmed by skew-Cℓ, wavelet bispectrum and Minkowski functional estimators. Beyond estimates of individual shape amplitudes, we present model-independent, three-dimensional reconstructions of the Planck CMB bispectrum and thus derive constraints on early-Universe scenarios that generate primordial NG, including general single-field models of inflation, excited initial states (non-Bunch-Davies vacua), and directionally-dependent vector models. We provide an initial survey of scale-dependent feature and resonance models. These results bound both general single-field and multi-field model parameter ranges, such as the speed of sound, cs ≥ 0.02 (95% CL), in an effective field theory parametrization, and the curvaton decay fraction rD ≥ 0.15 (95% CL). The Planck data significantly limit the viable parameter space of the ekpyrotic/cyclic scenarios. The amplitude of the four-point function in the local model τNL< 2800 (95% CL). Taken together, these constraints represent the highest precision tests to date of physical mechanisms for the origin of cosmic structure.

Although Charon seems to have lost its atmosphere and surface volatiles, a lack of heating that would be sufficient to generate melting and consequent separation of the lighter and heavier nonvolatiles has probably resulted in the outer layers' retention of the primordial mix of nonvolatiles. Spectroscopically-determined relative abundances for the Charon surface should accordingly be representative of its entire mass, and thereby constitutes the basis of an understanding of Charon's origin. The study of Charon's exposed nonvolatile ices may ascertain whether the Pluto-Charon system condensed out of the solar nebula directly or from a protoplanetary nebula. 46 references.

Refractory metal particles containing Os, Re, W, Mo, Ir, and Ru were observed in a Ca-Al-rich inclusion in the Allende meteorite. These particles are the closest to unaltered primordial metal condensates from a nebula yet reported, and appear to have been isolated from the nebula before the condensation of refractories was complete. Computer calculations of condensation indicate that the temperature of isolation appears to be close to the calculated temperature of first formation of oxides (about 1620 K at 0.0001 atm) indicating that isolation may have been effected by coating of the particles by oxides.

We investigate the primordial trispectra of the general multifield DBI inflationary model. In contrast with the single field model, the entropic modes can source the curvature perturbations on the super horizon scales, so we calculate the contributions from the interaction of four entropic modes mediating one adiabatic mode to the trispectra, at the large transfer limit (T{sub RS} >> 1). We obtained the general form of the 4-point correlation functions, plotted the shape diagrams in two specific momenta configurations, ''equilateral configuration'' and ''specialized configuration''. Our figures showed that we can easily distinguish the two different momenta configurations.

We demonstrate that a topological defect can explain the hemispherical power asymmetry of the CMB. The first point is that a defect configuration, which already exists prior to inflation, can source asymmetry of the CMB. The second point is that modulation mechanisms, such as the curvaton and other modulation mechanisms, can explain scale-dependence of the asymmetry. Using a simple analysis of the δ N formalism, we show models in which scale-dependent hemispherical power asymmetry is explained by primordial configuration of a defect.

Critical to the understanding of several fundamental problems in astronomy (among which the determination of the primordial helium is of foremost importance), extremely metal-poor galaxies have been almost impossible to find. In the past few years the authors have been successful in discovering them. They are embarked on a programme for obtaining with linear detectors, very high S/N spectra of these objects, in order to derive He abundances to better than the 5% per object needed to constrain the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe. The authors discuss some results and problems encountered in this quest.

The origin of astrophysical magnetic fields observed in galaxies and clusters of galaxies is still unclear. One possibility is that primordial magnetic fields generated in the early Universe provide seeds that grow through compression and turbulence during structure formation. A cosmological magnetic field present prior to recombination would produce substantial matter clustering at intermediate/small scales, on top of the standard inflationary power spectrum. In this work we study the effect of this alteration on one particular cosmological observable, cosmic shear. We adopt the semi-analytic halo model in order to describe the non-linear clustering of matter, and feed it with the altered mass variance induced by primordial magnetic fields. We find that the convergence power spectrum is, as expected, substantially enhanced at intermediate/small angular scales, with the exact amplitude of the enhancement depending on the magnitude and power-law index of the magnetic field power spectrum. Specifically, for a fixed amplitude, the effect of magnetic fields is larger for larger spectral indices. We use the predicted statistical errors for a future wide-field cosmic shear survey, on the model of the ESA Cosmic Vision mission Euclid, in order to forecast constraints on the amplitude of primordial magnetic fields as a function of the spectral index. We find that the amplitude will be constrained at the level of ∼ 0.1 nG for n{sub B} ∼ −3, and at the level of ∼ 10{sup −7} nG for n{sub B} ∼ 3. The latter is at the same level of lower bounds coming from the secondary emission of gamma-ray sources, implying that for high spectral indices Euclid will certainly be able to detect primordial magnetic fields, if they exist. The present study shows how large-scale structure surveys can be used for both understanding the origins of astrophysical magnetic fields and shedding new light on the physics of the pre-recombination Universe.

We study the resonant decay of the primordial Standard Model Higgs condensate after inflation into SU(2) gauge bosons on the lattice. We find that the non-Abelian interactions between the gauge bosons quickly extend the momentum distribution towards high values, efficiently destroying the condensate after the onset of backreaction. For the inflationary scale H = 108 GeV, we find that 90% of the Higgs condensate has decayed after n~ 10 oscillation cycles. This differs significantly from the Abelian case where, given the same coupling strengths, most of the condensate would persist after the resonance.

Background The standard genetic code is redundant and has a highly non-random structure. Codons for the same amino acids typically differ only by the nucleotide in the third position, whereas similar amino acids are encoded, mostly, by codon series that differ by a single base substitution in the third or the first position. As a result, the code is highly albeit not optimally robust to errors of translation, a property that has been interpreted either as a product of selection directed at the minimization of errors or as a non-adaptive by-product of evolution of the code driven by other forces. Results We investigated the error-minimization properties of putative primordial codes that consisted of 16 supercodons, with the third base being completely redundant, using a previously derived cost function and the error minimization percentage as the measure of a code's robustness to mistranslation. It is shown that, when the 16-supercodon table is populated with 10 putative primordial amino acids, inferred from the results of abiotic synthesis experiments and other evidence independent of the code's evolution, and with minimal assumptions used to assign the remaining supercodons, the resulting 2-letter codes are nearly optimal in terms of the error minimization level. Conclusion The results of the computational experiments with putative primordial genetic codes that contained only two meaningful letters in all codons and encoded 10 to 16 amino acids indicate that such codes are likely to have been nearly optimal with respect to the minimization of translation errors. This near-optimality could be the outcome of extensive early selection during the co-evolution of the code with the primordial, error-prone translation system, or a result of a unique, accidental event. Under this hypothesis, the subsequent expansion of the code resulted in a decrease of the error minimization level that became sustainable owing to the evolution of a high-fidelity translation system

The possibility that both the formation of nontopological solitons in a primordial second-order phase transition and binary systems of soliton stars could generate a stochastic gravitational-wave background is examined. The present contribution of gravitational radiation to the energy density of the universe from these processes is estimated for a number of different models. The detectability of such contributions from the timing measurements of the millisecond pulsar and spaceborne laser interferometry is briefly discussed and compared to other cosmological and local sources of background gravitational waves.

We first investigate the gravitational wave in the flat Finsler spacetime. In the Finslerian universe, we derive the perturbed gravitational field equation with tensor perturbations. The Finslerian background spacetime breaks rotational symmetry and induces parity violation. Then we obtain the modified primordial power spectrum of the tensor perturbations. The parity violation feature requires that the anisotropic effect contributes to the TT, TE, EE, BB angular correlation coefficients with l'=l+1 and TB, EB with l'=l. The numerical results show that the anisotropic contributions to the angular correlation coefficients depend on m, and TE and ET angular correlation coefficients are different.

The thickness and survivability of a cosmic ray-generated primordial comet refractory mantle, or 'crust', are presently predicted by laboratory data and corrected estimates of cosmic ray dose to be capable of surviving a new comet's entry into the inner solar system over numerous revolutions. It is suggested that, since this mantle may be as much as several meters deep, the probe apparatus of the projected CRAF and Rosetta spacecraft will have to be extended in order to reach the desired, unprocessed cometary material. As things stand, there is a high probability that these missions will sample cometary matter than has been heavily irradiated and reprocessed in the Oort cloud. 28 refs.

This is a revised description and manual for the primordial nucleosynthesis program, NUC123, an updated and modified version of the code of R.V. Wagoner. NUC123 has undergone a number of changes, further enhancing its documentation and ease of use. Presented here is a guide to its use, followed by a series of appendices containing specific details such as a summary of the basic structure of the program, a description of the computational algorithm, and a presentation of the theory incorporated into the program.

After presenting the current view of the processes taking place during the cosmological transition from 'quark soup' to normal hadron matter, attention is given to what happens to cosmological nucleosynthesis in the presence of small-scale baryon inhomogeneities. The QCD phase transition is among the plausible sources of this inhomogeneity. It is concluded that the formation of primordial 'quark nuggets' and other cold exotica requires very low entropy regions at the outset, and that even the more modest nonlinearities perturbing nucleosynthesis probably require some ingredient in addition to a quiescent, mildly supercooled transition.

A key problem in understanding the origin of life is to explain the mechanism(s) that led to the spontaneous assembly of molecular building blocks that ultimately resulted in the appearance of macromolecular structures as they are known in modern biochemistry today. An indispensable thermodynamic prerequisite for such a primordial anabolism is the mechanistic coupling to processes that supplied the free energy required. Here I review different sources of free energy and discuss the potential of each form having been involved in the very first anabolic reactions that were fundamental to increase molecular complexity and thus were essential for life. PMID:19468343

In the spirit of the Special Issue of HESS to which it contributes, this paper documents the origin and development of the science of natural evaporation from land surfaces over the last 30-35 years, since the symposium A View from the Watershed was held to commemorate the opening of the new Institute of Hydrology (IH) building in 1973. Important subsequent technical progress includes the ability to measure routinely the diurnal cycle of near-surface meteorological variables using automatic weather stations, and of surface energy and momentum exchanges using automated implementations of the Bowen Ratio/Energy Budget technique and the Eddy Correlation technique, along with the capability to estimate the "fetch" for which these measurements apply. These improvements have been complemented by new methods to measure the separate components of evaporation, including: the interception process using randomly relocated below-canopy gauges, transpiration fluxes from individual leaves/shoots using porometers and from plants/plant components using stem-flow gauges and soil evaporation using micro-lysimeters and soil moisture depletion methods. In recent years progress has been made in making theory-based area-average estimates of evaporation using scintillometers, and model-based area-average estimates by assembling many streams of relevant data into Land Data Assimilation Systems. Theoretical progress has been made in extending near-surface turbulence theory to accommodate the effect of the "excess" boundary layer resistance to leaf-to-air transfer of energy and mass fluxes relative to that for momentum, and to allow for observed shortcoming in stability factors in the transition layer immediately above vegetation. Controversy regarding the relative merits of multi-layer model and "big leaf" representations of whole-canopy exchanges has been resolved in favour of the latter approach. Important gaps in the theory of canopy-atmosphere interactions have been filled, including

Laboratory corrosion tests were conducted on eight candidates to select a durable and cost-effective alloy for use in mobile evaporators to process radioactive waste solutions. Based on an extensive literature survey of corrosion data, three stainless steel alloys (304L, 316L, AL-6XN), four nickel-based alloys (825, 625, 690, G-30), and titanium were selected for testing. The corrosion tests included vapor phase, liquid junction (interface), liquid immersion, and crevice corrosion tests on plain and welded samples of candidate materials. Tests were conducted at 80{degrees}C for 45 days in two different test solutions: a nitric acid solution. to simulate evaporator conditions during the processing of the cesium ion-exchange eluant and a highly alkaline sodium hydroxide solution to simulate the composition of Tank 241-AW-101 during evaporation. All of the alloys exhibited excellent corrosion resistance in the alkaline test solution. Corrosion rates were very low and localized corrosion was not observed. Results from the nitric acid tests showed that only 316L stainless steel did not meet our performance criteria. The 316L welded interface and crevice specimens had rates of 22.2 mpy and 21.8 mpy, respectively, which exceeds the maximum corrosion rate of 20 mpy. The other welded samples had about the same corrosion resistance as the plain samples. None of the welded samples showed preferential weld or heat-affected zone (HAZ) attack. Vapor corrosion was negligible for all alloys. All of the alloys except 316L exhibited either {open_quotes}satisfactory{close_quotes} (2-20 mpy) or {open_quotes}excellent{close_quotes} (<2 mpy) corrosion resistance as defined by National Association of Corrosion Engineers. However, many of the alloys experienced intergranular corrosion in the nitric acid test solution, which could indicate a susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in this environment.

In 1992, Congress passed the Federal Facilities Compliance Act that requires the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to treat and dispose of its mixed waste in accordance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) land disposal restrictions (LDRs). In response to the need for mixed-waste treatment capacity where available off-site commercial treatment facilities do not exist or cannot be used, the DOE Albuquerque Operations Office (DOE-AL) organized a Treatment Selection Team to match mixed wastes with treatment options and develop a strategy for treatment of its mixed wastes. DOE-AL manages operations at nine sites with mixed-waste inventories. The Treatment Selection Team determined a need to develop mobile treatment capacity to treat wastes at the sites where the wastes are generated. Treatment processes used for mixed waste not only must address the hazardous component (i.e., meet LDRs) but also must contain the radioactive component in a form that allows final disposal while protecting workers, the public, and the environment. On the basis of recommendations of the Treatment Selection Team, DOE-AL assigned projects to the sites to bring mixed-waste treatment capacity on-line. The three technologies assigned to the DOE Grand Junction Projects Office (GJPO) are evaporative oxidation, thermal desorption, and treated wastewater evaporation. Rust Geotech, the DOE-GJPO prime contractor, was assigned to design and fabricate mobile treatment units (MTUs) for these three technologies and to deliver the MTUs to selected DOE-AL sites. To conduct treatability tests at the GJPO, Rust leased a pilot-scale evaporative oxidation unit from the Clemson Technical Center (CTC), Anderson, South Carolina. The purpose of this report is to document the findings and results of tests performed using this equipment.

DWPF Technical has requested an analysis of the capacity of the organic Evaporator (OE) condenser (OEC) be performed to determine its capability in the case where the OE steam flow control valve fails open. Calculations of the OE boilup and the OEC heat transfer coefficient indicate the OEC will have more than enough capacity to remove the heat at maximum OE boilup. In fact, the Salt Cell Vent Condenser (SCVC) should also have sufficient capacity to handle the maximum OE boilup. Therefore it would require simultaneous loss of OEC and/or SCVC condensing capacity for the steam valve failure to cause high benzene in the Process Vessel Vent System (PVVS).

By adopting the empirical constraints related to the estimates of helium enhancement ({{Δ }}Y), the present mass ratio between first and second stellar generations ({M}1{{G}}/{M}2{{G}}), and the actual mass of Galactic globular clusters (M GC), we envisage a possible scenario for the formation of these stellar systems. Our approach allows for the possible loss of stars through evaporation or tidal interactions and different star-formation efficiencies. In our approach, the star-formation efficiency of the first generation (ɛ 1G) is the central factor that links the stellar generations because it not only defines both the mass in stars of the first generation and the remaining mass available for further star formation, but it also fixes the amount of matter required to contaminate the second stellar generation. In this way, ɛ 1G is fully defined by the He enhancement between successive generations in a GC. We also show that globular clusters fit well within a ΔY versus {M}1{{G}}/{M}2{{G}} diagram that indicates three different evolutionary paths. The central one is for clusters that have not lost stars through tidal interactions from either of their stellar generations, and thus their present M GC value is identical to the amount of low-mass stars (M * ≤ 1 M ⊙) that resulted from both stellar generations. Other possible evolutions imply either the loss of first-generation stars or the combination of a low star-formation efficiency in the second stellar generation and a loss of stars from the second generation. From these considerations, we derive a lower limit to the mass (M tot) of the individual primordial clouds that gave origin to globular clusters.

Biosecurity and sustainability in poultry production requires reliable germplasm conservation. Germplasm conservation in poultry is more challenging in comparison to other livestock species. Embryo cryopreservation is not feasible for egg-laying animals, and chicken semen conservation has variable success for different chicken breeds. A potential solution is the cryopreservation of the committed diploid stem cell precursors to the gametes, the primordial germ cells ( PGCS: ). Primordial germ cells are the lineage-restricted cells found at early embryonic stages in birds and form the sperm and eggs. We demonstrate here, using flocks of partially inbred, lower-fertility, major histocompatibility complex- ( MHC-: ) restricted lines of chicken, that we can easily derive and cryopreserve a sufficient number of independent lines of male and female PGCs that would be sufficient to reconstitute a poultry breed. We demonstrate that germ-line transmission can be attained from these PGCs using a commercial layer line of chickens as a surrogate host. This research is a major step in developing and demonstrating that cryopreserved PGCs could be used for the biobanking of specialized flocks of birds used in research settings. The prospective application of this technology to poultry production will further increase sustainability to meet current and future production needs. PMID:27099306

We show that the new precise measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies made by the Planck satellite significantly improves previous constraints on the cosmic gravitational waves background (CGWB) at frequencies f >10-15 Hz. On scales smaller than the horizon at the time of decoupling, primordial gravitational waves contribute to the total radiation content of the Universe. Considering adiabatic perturbations, CGWB affects temperature and polarization CMB power spectra and matter power spectrum in a manner identical to relativistic particles. Considering the latest Planck results we constrain the CGWB energy density to Ωgwh2 < 1.7 ×10-6 at 95% CL. Combining CMB power spectra with lensing, BAO and primordial Deuterium abundance observations, we obtain Ωgwh2 < 1.2 ×10-6 at 95% CL, improving previous Planck bounds by a factor 3 and the recent direct upper limit from the LIGO and VIRGO experiments a factor 2. A combined analysis of future satellite missions as COrE and EUCLID could improve current bound by more than an order of magnitude.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) is the synthesis of the light nuclei, Deuterium (D or 2H), 3He, 4He and 7Li during the first few minutes of the universe. This review concentrates on recent improvements in the measurement of the primordial (after BBN, and prior to modification) abundances of these nuclei. We mention improvement in the standard theory, and the non-standard extensions which are limited by the data. We have achieved an order of magnitude improvement in the precision of the measurement of primordial D/H, using the HIRES spectrograph on the W. M. Keck telescope to measure D in gas with very nearly primordial abundances towards quasars. From 1994 - 1996, it appeared that there could be a factor of ten range in primordial D/H, but today four examples of low D are secure. High D/H should be much easier to detect, and since there are no convincing examples, it must be extremely rare or non-existent. All data are consistent with a single low value for D/H, and the examples which are consistent with high D/H are readily interpreted as H contamination near the position of D. The new D/H measurements give the most accurate value for the baryon to photon ratio, η, and hence the cosmological baryon density. A similar density is required to explain the amount of Lyα absorption from neutral Hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift z ≃ 3, and to explain the fraction of baryons in local clusters of galaxies. The D/H measurements lead to predictions for the abundances of the other light nuclei, which generally agree with measurements. The remaining differences with some measurements can be explained by a combination of measurement and analysis errors or changes in the abundances after BBN. The measurements do not require physics beyond the standard BBN model. Instead, the agreement between the abundances is used to limit the non-standard physics. New measurements are giving improved understanding of the difficulties in estimating the abundances of all

Significant stellar obliquities have been observed in many exoplanetary systems containing hot Jupiters, including some coplanar multiplanet systems. It is traditionally assumed that planet migration in protoplanetary disks leads to aligned planetary orbital axis and stellar spin axis. This may not be the case because the diskitself may be misaligned with the protostar, for several reasons: (1) Since star formation takes place in a turbulent medium, the accreting gas assembled onto a protoplanetary disk may have a varying direction of angular momentum; (2) Magnetic star-disk interaction may produce a misalignment torque between the stellar spin and the disk; (3) Perturbation from a binary companion can change the orientation of the disk. We critically examine these mechanisms for generating primordial spin-disk misalignments. The importance of star-disk-binary interactions and the possibility of secular spin-orbit resonance in producing large stellar obliquities will be emphasized. The effects and uncertainties involving the dynamics of warped disks and star-disk magnetic interactions will be discussed. Possible observational constraints and tests on primordial misalignments will also be discussed, including the observed correlation between the stellar obliquity and effective temperature.

In this paper, we provide a systematic investigation of high-order primordial perturbations with nonlinear dispersion relations due to quantum gravitational effects in the framework of uniform asymptotic approximations. Because of these effects, the equation of motion of the mode function in general has multiple turning points. After obtaining analytically approximated solutions to any order in different regions, associated with different types of turning points, we match them to the third one. To this order the errors are less than 0.15%. General expressions of the power spectra of the primordial tensor and scalar perturbations are derived explicitly. We also investigate effects of backreactions of the quantum gravitational corrections, and make sure that inflation lasts long enough in order to solve the underlying problems, such as flatness, horizon, and monopole. Then we study various features of the spectra that are observationally relevant. In particular, under a moderate assumption about the energy scale of the underlying theory of quantum gravity, we have shown that the quantum gravitational effects may alter significantly the ratio between the tensor and scalar power spectra, thereby providing a natural mechanism to alleviate the tension between observations and certain inflationary models, including the one with a quadratic potential.

We study the formation and long-term evolution of primordial protostellar disks harbored by first stars using numerical hydrodynamics simulations in the thin-disk limit. The initial conditions are specified by pre-stellar cores with distinct mass, angular momentum, and temperature. This allows us to probe several tens of thousand years of the disk's initial evolution, during which we observe multiple episodes of fragmentation leading to the formation of gravitationally bound gaseous clumps within spiral arms. These fragments are torqued inward due to gravitational interaction with the spiral arms on timescales of 10{sup 3}-10{sup 4} yr and accreted onto the growing protostar, giving rise to accretion and luminosity bursts. The burst phenomenon is fueled by continuing accretion of material falling onto the disk from the collapsing parent core, which replenishes the mass lost by the disk due to accretion, and triggers repetitive episodes of disk fragmentation. We show that the burst phenomenon is expected to occur for a wide spectrum of initial conditions in primordial pre-stellar cores and speculate on how the intense luminosities ({approx}10{sup 7} L{sub Sun }) produced by this mechanism may have important consequences for the disk evolution and subsequent growth of the protostar.

We study the primordial perturbations generated during a stage of single-field inflation in Einstein-aether theories. Quantum fluctuations of the inflaton and aether fields seed long wavelength adiabatic and isocurvature scalar perturbations, as well as transverse vector perturbations. Geometrically, the isocurvature mode is the potential for the velocity field of the aether with respect to matter. For a certain range of parameters, this mode may lead to a sizable random velocity of the aether within the observable universe. The adiabatic mode corresponds to curvature perturbations of co-moving slices (where matter is at rest). In contrast with the standard case, it has a non-vanishing anisotropic stress on large scales. Scalar and vector perturbations may leave significant imprints on the cosmic microwave background. We calculate their primordial spectra, analyze their contributions to the temperature anisotropies, and formulate some of the phenomenological constraints that follow from observations. These may be used to further tighten the existing limits on the parameters for this class of theories. The results for the scalar sector also apply to the extension of Hořava gravity recently proposed by Blas, Pujolàs and Sibiryakov.

Biosecurity and sustainability in poultry production requires reliable germplasm conservation. Germplasm conservation in poultry is more challenging in comparison to other livestock species. Embryo cryopreservation is not feasible for egg-laying animals, and chicken semen conservation has variable success for different chicken breeds. A potential solution is the cryopreservation of the committed diploid stem cell precursors to the gametes, the primordial germ cells (PGCs). Primordial germ cells are the lineage-restricted cells found at early embryonic stages in birds and form the sperm and eggs. We demonstrate here, using flocks of partially inbred, lower-fertility, major histocompatibility complex- (MHC-) restricted lines of chicken, that we can easily derive and cryopreserve a sufficient number of independent lines of male and female PGCs that would be sufficient to reconstitute a poultry breed. We demonstrate that germ-line transmission can be attained from these PGCs using a commercial layer line of chickens as a surrogate host. This research is a major step in developing and demonstrating that cryopreserved PGCs could be used for the biobanking of specialized flocks of birds used in research settings. The prospective application of this technology to poultry production will further increase sustainability to meet current and future production needs. PMID:27099306

The menagerie of objects that make up our Solar System reflects the composition of the huge molecular cloud in which the Sun formed, a late addition of short-lived isotopes from an exploding supernova or stellar winds from a neighboring massive star, heating and/or alteration by water in growing planetesimals that modified and segregated the primordial components, and mixing throughout the Solar System. Outer Solar System objects, such as comets, have always been cold, hence minimizing the changes experienced by more processed objects. They are thought to preserve information about the molecular cloud. Elishevah Van Kooten (Natural History Museum of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen) and co-authors in Denmark and at the University of Hawai'i, measured the isotopic compositions of magnesium and chromium in metal-rich carbonaceous chondrites. They found that the meteorites preserve an isotopic signature of primordial molecular cloud materials, providing a potentially detailed record of the molecular cloud's composition and of materials that formed in the outer Solar System.

We analyze the influence of sterile neutrinos with the masses in the MeV range on the primordial abundances of Helium-4 and Deuterium. We solve explicitly the Boltzmann equations for all particle species, taking into account neutrino flavour oscillations and demonstrate that the abundances are sensitive mostly to the sterile neutrino lifetime and only weakly to the way the active-sterile mixing is distributed between flavours. The decay of these particles also perturbs the spectra of (decoupled) neutrinos and heats photons, changing the ratio of neutrino to photon energy density, that can be interpreted as extra neutrino species at the recombination epoch. We derive upper bounds on the lifetime of sterile neutrinos based on both astrophysical and cosmological measurements of Helium-4 and Deuterium. We also demonstrate that the recent results of Izotov and Thuan [1], who find 2σ higher than predicted by the standard primordial nucleosynthesis value of Helium-4 abundance, are consistent with the presence in the plasma of sterile neutrinos with the lifetime 0.01–2 seconds.

Primordial magnetic fields (PMF) damp at scales smaller than the photon diffusion and free-streaming scale. This leads to heating of ordinary matter (electrons and baryons), which affects both the thermal and ionization history of our Universe. Here, we study the effect of heating due to ambipolar diffusion and decaying magnetic turbulence. We find that changes to the ionization history computed with recfast are significantly overestimated when compared with CosmoRec. The main physical reason for the difference is that the photoionization coefficient has to be evaluated using the radiation temperature rather than the matter temperature. A good agreement with CosmoRec is found after changing this aspect. Using Planck 2013 data and considering only the effect of PMF-induced heating, we find an upper limit on the rms magnetic field amplitude of B0 ≲ 1.1 nG (95 per cent c.l.) for a stochastic background of PMF with a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum. We also discuss uncertainties related to the approximations for the heating rates and differences with respect to previous studies. Our results are important for the derivation of constraints on the PMF power spectrum obtained from measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies with full-mission Planck data. They may also change some of the calculations of PMF-induced effects on the primordial chemistry and 21cm signals.

Context. The discovery and chemical analysis of extremely metal-poor stars permit a better understanding of the star formation of the first generation of stars and of the Universe emerging from the Big Bang. Aims: We report the study of a primordial star situated in the centre of the constellation Leo (SDSS J102915+172927). Methods: The star, selected from the low-resolution spectrum of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, was observed at intermediate (with X-Shooter at VLT) and at high spectral resolution (with UVES at VLT). The stellar parameters were derived from the photometry. The standard spectroscopic analysis based on 1D ATLAS models was completed by applying 3D and non-LTE corrections. Results: An iron abundance of [Fe/H ] = -4.89 makes SDSS J102915+172927 one of the lowest [Fe/H] stars known. However, the absence of measurable C and N enhancements indicates that it has the lowest metallicity, Z ≤ 7.40 × 10-7 (metal-mass fraction), ever detected. No oxygen measurement was possible. Conclusions: The discovery of SDSS J102915+172927 highlights that low-mass star formation occurred at metallicities lower than previously assumed. Even lower metallicity stars may yet be discovered, with a chemical composition closer to the composition of the primordial gas and of the first supernovae. Based on observations obtained at ESO Paranal Observatory, GTO programme 086.D-0094 and programme 286.D-5045.

Inflationary scenarios in string theory often involve a large number of light scalar fields, whose presence can enrich the post-inflationary evolution of primordial fluctuations generated during the inflationary epoch. We provide a simple example of such post-inflationary processing within an explicit string-inflationary construction, using a Kähler modulus as the inflaton within the framework of LARGE Volume Type-IIB string flux compactifications. We argue that inflationary models within this broad category often have a selection of scalars that are light enough to be cosmologically relevant, whose contributions to the primordial fluctuation spectrum can compete with those generated in the standard way by the inflaton. These models consequently often predict nongaussianity at a level, {f_{text{NL}}} ˜eq mathcal{O}left( {10} right) , potentially observable by the Planck satellite, with a bi-spectrum maximized by triangles with squeezed shape in a string realization of the curvaton scenario. We argue that the observation of such a signal would robustly prefer string cosmologies such as these that predict a multi-field dynamics during the very early universe.

Primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology acquire classical properties through decoherence when their wavelengths become larger than the Hubble scale. Although decoherence is effective, it is not complete, so a significant part of primordial correlations remains up to the present moment. We address the issue of the pointer states which provide a classical basis for the fluctuations with respect to the influence by an environment (other fields). Applying methods from the quantum theory of open systems (the Lindblad equation), we show that this basis is given by narrow Gaussians that approximate eigenstates of field amplitudes. We calculate both the von Neumann and linear entropy of the fluctuations. Their ratio to the maximal entropy per field mode defines a degree of partial decoherence in the entropy sense. We also determine the time of partial decoherence making the Wigner function positive everywhere which, for super-Hubble modes during inflation, is virtually independent of coupling to the environment and is only slightly larger than the Hubble time. On the other hand, assuming a representative environment (a photon bath), the decoherence time for sub-Hubble modes is finite only if some real dissipation exists.

Patterned highly absorbing gold black film has been selectively deposited on the active surfaces of a vanadium-oxide-based infrared bolometer array. Patterning by metal lift-off relies on protection of the fragile gold black with an evaporated oxide, which preserves gold black's near unity absorption. This patterned gold black also survives the dry-etch removal of the sacrificial polyimide used to fabricate the air-bridge bolometers. Infrared responsivity is substantially improved by the gold black coating without significantly increasing noise. The increase in the time constant caused by the additional mass of gold black is a modest 14%.

When a liquid layer (alcohol in the present work) is in an environment where its relative humidity is less than 100 percent evaporation appears. When RH is above a certain threshold the liquid is at rest. If RH decreases below this threshold the flow becomes unstable, and hydrodynamic cells develop. The aim of this work is to understand the formation of those cells and its main features. Firstly, we investigate how the cell size depends on the layer width. We also study how temperature depends on the vertical coordinate when the cells are present. An inverse temperature gradient is found, that is, the bottom of liquid layer is colder than the free surface. This shows that the intuitive idea that the cells are due to a direct temperature gradient, following a Marangoni-like process, does not work. We propose the hypothesis that the evaporation produce a pressure gradient that is responsible of the cell development. On the other hand, using a Schlieren technique we study the topography of the free surface when cells are present. Finally the alcohol vapor layer adjacent to the liquid surface is explored using scattering experiments, giving some insight on the plausibility of the hypothesis described previously. Authors acknowledge support by DGAPA-UNAM under project IN116312 ``Vorticidad y ondas no lineales en fluidos.''

We show that a central presumption in the debate over black-hole information loss is incorrect. Ensuring that information not escape during evaporation does not require that it all remain trapped until the final stage of the process. Using the recent quantum information-theoretic result of locking, we show that the amount of information that must remain can be very small, even as the amount already radiated is negligible. Information need not be additive: A small system can lock a large amount of information, making it inaccessible. Only if the set of initial states is restricted can information leak. PMID:16606164

The semiclassical effects of anti-evaporatingblack holes can be discussed in the framework of f(R) gravity. In particular, the Bousso-Hawking-Nojiri-Odinstov anti-evaporation instability of degenerate Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes (the so-called Nariai spacetime) leads to a dynamical increasing of black hole horizon in f(R) gravity. This phenomenon causes the following transition: emitting marginally trapped surfaces (TS) become space-like surfaces before the effective Bekenstein-Hawking emission time. As a consequence, Bousso-Hawking thermal radiation cannot be emitted in an anti-evaporating Nariai black hole. Possible implications in cosmology and black hole physics are also discussed.

The performance of the evaporative elbow system was found to be superior to that of the nonevaporative system, but comparable to the performance of the linear system. The parametric role of the evaporator wall temperature, the condenser wall temperature, and the vapor saturation temperature was demonstrated, each revealing a similar monotonic effect. With the evaporator upright, the data were found to be similar to, but displaced from, the upright condenser data. The upright evaporator gave the better performance, but not overwhelmingly so. The limit of performance with the condenser upright was found to be dictated by evaporator dryout. In the upright evaporator configuration, the limit may be attributed to flooding in the poorly draining condenser; this limit was indistinguishable from geyser behavior at low vapor pressures. 16 refs., 3 figs.

In this work, we investigate black hole (BH) physics in the context of quantum corrections. These quantum corrections were introduced recently by replacing classical geodesics with quantal (Bohmian) trajectories and hence form a quantum Raychaudhuri equation (QRE). From the QRE, we derive a modified Schwarzschild metric, and use that metric to investigate BH singularity and thermodynamics. We find that these quantum corrections change the picture of Hawking radiation greatly when the size of BH approaches the Planck scale. They prevent the BH from total evaporation, predicting the existence of a quantum BH remnant, which may introduce a possible resolution for the catastrophic behavior of Hawking radiation as the BH mass approaches zero. Those corrections also turn the spacelike singularity of the black hole to be timelike, and hence this may ameliorate the information loss problem.

We review some features of BEC models of black holes obtained by means of the HWF formalism. We consider the KG equation for a toy graviton field coupled to a static matter current in spherical symmetry. The classical field reproduces the Newtonian potential generated by the matter source, while the corresponding quantum state is given by a coherent superposition of scalar modes with continuous occupation number. An attractive self-interaction is needed for bound states to form, so that (approximately) one mode is allowed, and the system of N bosons can be self-confined in a volume of the size of the Schwarzschild radius. The HWF is then used to show that the radius of such a system corresponds to a proper horizon. The uncertainty in the size of the horizon is related to the typical energy of Hawking modes: it decreases with the increasing of the black hole mass (larger number of gravitons), in agreement with semiclassical calculations and different from a single very massive particle. The spectrum contains a discrete ground state of energy $m$ (the bosons forming the black hole), and a continuous spectrum with energy $\\omega > m$ (representing the Hawking radiation and modelled with a Planckian distribution at the expected Hawking temperature). The $N$-particle state can be collectively described by a single-particle wave-function given by a superposition of a total ground state with energy $M = N m$ and a Planckian distribution for $E > M$ at the same Hawking temperature. The partition function is then found to yield the usual area law for the entropy, with a logarithmic correction related with the Hawking component. The backreaction of modes with $\\omega > m$ is also shown to reduce the Hawking flux and the evaporation properly stops for vanishing mass.

An apparatus and method for warm-liquid defrosting of the evaporator of a refrigeration system. The apparatus includes a first refrigerant expansion device that selectively expands refrigerant for cooling the evaporator, a second refrigerant expansion device that selectively expands the refrigerant after the refrigerant has passed through the evaporator, and a defrosting control for the first refrigerant expansion device and second refrigerant expansion device to selectively defrost the evaporator by causing warm refrigerant to flow through the evaporator. The apparatus is alternately embodied with a first refrigerant bypass and/or a second refrigerant bypass for selectively directing refrigerant to respectively bypass the first refrigerant expansion device and the second refrigerant expansion device, and with the defrosting control connected to the first refrigerant bypass and/or the second refrigerant bypass to selectively activate and deactivate the bypasses depending upon the current cycle of the refrigeration system. The apparatus alternately includes an accumulator for accumulating liquid and/or gaseous refrigerant that is then pumped either to a refrigerant receiver or the first refrigerant expansion device for enhanced evaporator defrosting capability. The inventive method of defrosting an evaporator in a refrigeration system includes the steps of compressing refrigerant in a compressor and cooling the refrigerant in the condenser such that the refrigerant is substantially in liquid form, passing the refrigerant substantially in liquid form through the evaporator, and expanding the refrigerant with a refrigerant expansion device after the refrigerant substantially passes through the evaporator.

The present invention discloses a comprehensive, efficient, and cost effective portable evaporator unit, method, and system for the treatment of brine. The evaporator unit, method, and system require a pretreatment process that removes heavy metals, crude oil, and other contaminates in preparation for the evaporator unit. The pretreatment and the evaporator unit, method, and system process metals and brine at the site where they are generated (the well site). Thus, saving significant money to producers who can avoid present and future increases in transportation costs.

The disk corona evaporation model extensively developed for the interpretation of observational features of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXRBs) is applied to active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Since the evaporation of gas in the disk can lead to its truncation for accretion rates less than a maximal evaporation rate, the model can naturally account for the soft spectrum in high-luminosity AGNs and the hard spectrum in low-luminosity AGNs. The existence of two different luminosity levels describing transitions from the soft to hard state and from the hard to soft state in BHXRBs, when applied to AGNs, suggests that AGNs can be in either spectral state within a range of luminosities. For example, at a viscosity parameter, alpha, equal to 0.3, the Eddington ratio from the hard-to-soft transition and from the soft-to-hard transition occurs at 0.027 and 0.005, respectively. The differing Eddington ratios result from the importance of Compton cooling in the latter transition, in which the cooling associated with soft photons emitted by the optically thick inner disk in the soft spectral state inhibits evaporation. When the Eddington ratio of the AGN lies below the critical value corresponding to its evolutionary state, the disk is truncated. With decreasing Eddington ratios, the inner edge of the disk increases to greater distances from the black hole with a concomitant increase in the inner radius of the broad-line region, R {sub BLR}. The absence of an optically thick inner disk at low luminosities (L) gives rise to region in the R {sub BLR}-L plane for which the relation R {sub BLR} propor to L {sup 1/2} inferred at high luminosities is excluded. As a result, a lower limit to the accretion rate is predicted for the observability of broad emission lines, if the broad-line region is associated with an optically thick accretion disk. Thus, true Seyfert 2 galaxies may exist at very low accretion rates/luminosities. The differences between BHXRBs and AGNs in the framework of

In a previous paper, we studied the interior solution of a collapsing body in a non-local theory of gravity super-renormalizable at the quantum level. We found that the classical singularity is replaced by a bounce, after which the body starts expanding. A black hole, strictly speaking, never forms. The gravitational collapse does not create an event horizon but only an apparent one for a finite time. In this paper, we solve the equations of motion assuming that the exterior solution is static. With such an assumption, we are able to reconstruct the solution in the whole spacetime, namely in both the exterior and interior regions. Now the gravitational collapse creates an event horizon in a finite comoving time, but the central singularity is approached in an infinite time. We argue that these black holes should be unstable, providing a link between the scenarios with and without black holes. Indeed, we find a non catastrophic ghost-instability of the metric in the exterior region. Interestingly, under certain conditions, the lifetime of our black holes exactly scales as the Hawking evaporation time.

Black holes came into existence together with the universe through the quantum process of pair creation in the inflationary era. We present the instantons responsible for this process and calculate the pair creation rate from the no boundary proposal for the wave function of the universe. We find that this proposal leads to physically sensible results, which fit in with other descriptions of pair creation, while the tunneling proposal makes unphysical predictions. We then describe how the pair-created black holes evolve during inflation. In the classical solution, they grow with the horizon scale during the slow roll down of the inflaton field; this is shown to correspond to the flux of field energy across the horizon according to the first law of black hole mechanics. When quantum effects are taken into account, however, it is found that most black holes evaporate before the end of inflation. Finally, we consider the pair creation of magnetically charged black holes, which cannot evaporate. In standard Einstein-Maxwell theory we find that their number in the presently observable universe is exponentially small. We speculate how this conclusion may change if dilatonic theories are applied.

Recent advances in manipulating interactions between ultracold atoms opened up various new possibilities. One of the major goal of the field is to produce ultracold polar molecules. By utilizing a magnetic field induced Feshbach resonance, it is possible to produce heteronuclear molecules from a degenerate gas mixture. We are setting up an experiment to produce a degenerate gas mixture of fermionic alkali atoms, lithium-6 and potassium-40. Fermionic atoms are good candidate for minimizing the expected inelastic loss at the Feshbach resonance. For keeping the system as simple as possible, we decided to use bosonic potassium (potassium-41) as a coolant, and sympathetically cool the fermionic species. We will present our experimental setup and initial results for evaporatively cooling bosonic potassium atoms.

Black holes have been predicted to radiate particles and eventually evaporate, which has led to the information loss paradox and implies that the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics may be violated. Superstring theory, a consistent theory of quantum gravity, provides a possible solution to the paradox if evaporatingblack holes can actually be described in terms of standard quantum mechanical systems, as conjectured from the theory. Here, we test this conjecture by calculating the mass of a black hole in the corresponding quantum mechanical system numerically. Our results agree well with the prediction from gravity theory, including the leading quantum gravity correction. Our ability to simulate black holes offers the potential to further explore the yet mysterious nature of quantum gravity through well-established quantum mechanics. PMID:24790030

Black holes have been predicted to radiate particles and eventually evaporate, which has led to the information loss paradox and implies that the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics may be violated. Superstring theory, a consistent theory of quantum gravity, provides a possible solution to the paradox if evaporatingblack holes can actually be described in terms of standard quantum mechanical systems, as conjectured from the theory. Here, we test this conjecture by calculating the mass of a black hole in the corresponding quantum mechanical system numerically. Our results agree well with the prediction from gravity theory, including the leading quantum gravity correction. Our ability to simulate black holes offers the potential to further explore the yet mysterious nature of quantum gravity through well-established quantum mechanics.

We examine the evaporation of a small black hole on a brane in a world with large extra dimensions. Since the masses of many Kaluza-Klein modes are much smaller than the Hawking temperature of the black hole, it has been claimed that most of the energy is radiated into these modes. We show that this is incorrect. Most of the energy goes into the modes on the brane. This raises the possibility of observing Hawking radiation in future high energy colliders if there are large extra dimensions. PMID:10991325

These essays explore why the historic conflict between blacks and whites in the United States has become a crisis that divides many African Americans. The changing racial dynamic is not marked by conflicts. between the black middle class and the poor, black men and women, the black intellectual elite and rappers, black politicians and the urban…

Nanofluids, stable colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in a base fluid, have potential applications in the heat transfer, combustion and propulsion, manufacturing, and medical fields. Experiments were conducted to determine the evaporation rate of room temperature, millimeter-sized pendant drops of ethanol laden with varying amounts (0-3% by weight) of 40-60 nm aluminum nanoparticles (nAl). Time-resolved high-resolution drop images were collected for the determination of early-time evaporation rate (D2/D 02 > 0.75), shown to exhibit D-square law behavior, and surface tension. Results show an asymptotic decrease in pendant drop evaporation rate with increasing nAl loading. The evaporation rate decreases by approximately 15% at around 1% to 3% nAl loading relative to the evaporation rate of pure ethanol. Surface tension was observed to be unaffected by nAl loading up to 3% by weight. A model was developed to describe the evaporation of the nanofluid pendant drops based on D-square law analysis for the gas domain and a description of the reduction in liquid fraction available for evaporation due to nanoparticle agglomerate packing near the evaporating drop surface. Model predictions are in relatively good agreement with experiment, within a few percent of measured nanofluid pendant drop evaporation rate. The evaporation of pinned nanofluid sessile drops was also considered via modeling. It was found that the same mechanism for nanofluid evaporation rate reduction used to explain pendant drops could be used for sessile drops. That mechanism is a reduction in evaporation rate due to a reduction in available ethanol for evaporation at the drop surface caused by the packing of nanoparticle agglomerates near the drop surface. Comparisons of the present modeling predictions with sessile drop evaporation rate measurements reported for nAl/ethanol nanofluids by Sefiane and Bennacer [11] are in fairly good agreement. Portions of this abstract previously appeared as: W. J

The quasi-static contraction of primordial stars composed of pure hydrogen and helium gas is studied by following numerically the evolution of a star of five solar masses from the end of protostellar accretion to the onset of hydrogen burning. Although the protostellar core of this mass is radiatively stable and undergoing nonhomologous contraction, its large surface area and luminosity force the star to a partially convective, homologously contracting state within only 100 yr. Deuterium later ignites at an off-center temperature maximum but fails to produce interior convection. The star follows a conventional premain sequence track in the HR diagram, reaching the ZAMS after 1.2 million yr, with a luminosity of 880 solar luminosities and a radius of 1.2 solar radii.

Galilean genesis is an alternative to inflation, in which the universe starts expanding from Minkowski with the stable violation of the null energy condition. In this paper, we discuss how the early universe is reheated through the gravitational particle production at the transition from the genesis phase to the subsequent phase where the kinetic energy of the scalar field is dominant. We then study the consequences of gravitational reheating after Galilean genesis on the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves. The resultant spectrum is strongly blue, and at high frequencies Ωgwpropto f3 in terms of the energy density per unit logarithmic frequency. Though this cannot be detected in existing detectors, the amplitude can be as large as Ωgw~ 10‑12 at f~ 100 MHz, providing a future test of the genesis scenario. The analysis is performed within the framework of generalized Galilean genesis based on the Horndeski theory, which enables us to derive generic formulas.

We study primordial magnetic field effects on the matter perturbations in the universe. We assume magnetic field generation prior to the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), i.e., during the radiation-dominated epoch of the universe expansion, but do not limit analysis by considering a particular magnetogenesis scenario. Contrary to previous studies, we limit the total magnetic field energy density and not the smoothed amplitude of the magnetic field at large (of the order of 1 Mpc) scales. We review several cosmological signatures, such as halo abundance, thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, and Ly{alpha} data. For a cross-check, we compare our limits with that obtained through the cosmic microwave background faraday rotation effect and BBN. The limits range between 1.5 nG and 4.5 nG for n{sub B} in (- 3; -1.5).

An essential quantity required to understand the physics of the early Universe is the primordial scalar potential and its statistics. We present an inexpensive all-sky reconstruction of the potential from CMB temperature data as well as an extension including polarization data. This has been achieved by applying a fully parallelized Bayesian inference method that separates the whole inverse problem into many, each of them solved by an optimal linear filter. Once explicitly having the potential, its statistics and underlying physics can be directly obtained avoiding expensive CMB analyses. This reconstruction, for instance, allows to infer the spatial structure of magnetic fields within the recombination epoch, the potential seeds of large-scale magnetic fields nowadays.

We show that the prediction for the primordial tensor power spectrum cannot be modified at leading order in derivatives. Indeed, one can always set to unity the speed of propagation of gravitational waves during inflation by a suitable disformal transformation of the metric, while a conformal one can make the Planck mass time independent. Therefore, the tensor amplitude unambiguously fixes the energy scale of inflation. Using the effective field theory of inflation, we check that predictions are independent of the choice of frame, as expected. The first corrections to the standard prediction come from two parity violating operators with three derivatives. Also the correlator ⟨γ γ γ ⟩ is standard and only receives higher derivative corrections. These results hold also in multifield models of inflation and in alternatives to inflation and make the connection between a (quasi-)scale-invariant tensor spectrum and inflation completely robust.

The diversity of the central metabolism of modern organisms is caused by the existence of a few metabolic modules, combination of which produces multiple metabolic pathways. This paper analyzes biomimetically reconstructed coupled autocatalytic cycles as the basis of ancestral metabolic systems. The mechanism for natural selection and evolution in autocatalytic chemical systems may be affected by natural homeostatic parameters such as ambient chemical potentials, temperature, and pressure. Competition between separate parts of an autocatalytic network with positive-plus-negative feedback resulted in the formation of primordial autotrophic, mixotrophic, and heterotrophic metabolic systems. This work examined the last common ancestor of a set of coupled metabolic cycles in a population of protocells. Physical-chemical properties of these cycles determined the main principles of natural selection for the ancestral Bacteria and Archaea taxa.

Lower dimensionality at higher energies has manifold theoretical advantages as recently pointed out by Anchordoqui et al. [arXiv:1003.5914]. Moreover, it appears that experimental evidence may already exist for it: A statistically significant planar alignment of events with energies higher than TeV has been observed in some earlier cosmic ray experiments. We propose a robust and independent test for this new paradigm. Since (2+1)-dimensional spacetimes have no gravitational degrees of freedom, gravity waves cannot be produced in that epoch. This places a universal maximum frequency at which primordial waves can propagate, marked by the transition between dimensions. We show that this cutoff frequency may be accessible to future gravitational wave detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. PMID:21469781

We provide the power spectrum of small scalar perturbations propagating in an inflationary scenario within loop quantum cosmology. We consider the hybrid quantization approach applied to a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime with flat spatial sections coupled to a massive scalar field. We study the quantum dynamics of scalar perturbations on an effective background within this hybrid approach. We consider in our study adiabatic states of different orders. For them, we find that the hybrid quantization is in good agreement with the predictions of the dressed metric approach. We also propose an initial vacuum state for the perturbations, and compute the primordial and the anisotropy power spectrum in order to qualitatively compare with the current observations of Planck mission. We find that our vacuum state is in good agreement with them, showing a suppression of the power spectrum for large scale anisotropies. We compare with other choices already studied in the literature.

In this paper I review the theory and numerical simulations of nonlinear dynamics of preheating, a stage of dynamical instability at the end of inflation during which the homogeneous inflaton explosively decays and deposits its energy into excitation of other matter fields. I focus on preheating in chaotic inflation models, which proceeds via broad parametric resonance. I describe a simple method to evaluate Floquet exponents, calculating stability diagrams of Mathieu and Lame equations describing development of instability in m2phi2 and λphi4 preheating models. I discuss basic numerical methods and issues, and present simulation results highlighting non-equilibrium transitions, topological defect formation, late-time universality, turbulent scaling and approach to thermalization. I explain how preheating can generate large-scale primordial (non-Gaussian) curvature fluctuations manifest in cosmic microwave background anisotropy and large-scale structure, and discuss potentially observable signatures of preheating.

Primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) in Large Scale Structures is obfuscated by the many additional sources of non-linearity. Within the Effective Field Theory approach to Standard Perturbation Theory, we show that matter non-linearities in the bispectrum can be modeled sufficiently well to strengthen current bounds with near future surveys, such as Euclid. We find that the EFT corrections are crucial to this improvement in sensitivity. Yet, our understanding of non-linearities is still insufficient to reach important theoretical benchmarks for equilateral PNG, while, for local PNG, our forecast is more optimistic. We consistently account for the theoretical error intrinsic to the perturbative approach and discuss the details of its implementation in Fisher forecasts.

We discuss how measurements of fluctuations in the absorption of cosmic microwave background photons by neutral gas at redshifts z approximately 7-200 could reveal the primordial deuterium abundance of the Universe. The strength of the cross-correlation of brightness-temperature fluctuations in the redshifted 21-cm line of hydrogen with those in the redshifted 92-cm line of deuterium is proportional to the value of the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio [D/H] fixed during big bang nucleosynthesis. Although challenging, this measurement would provide the cleanest possible determination of [D/H], free from contamination by structure formation processes at lower redshifts. We additionally report our result for the thermal spin-change cross section in deuterium-hydrogen scattering. PMID:17026353

We study the bispectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation on uniform density hypersurfaces generated by a kind of the noncanonical warm inflation, wherein the inflation is provided by a noncanonical scalar inflaton field that is coupled to radiation through a thermal dissipation effect. We obtain an analytic form for the nonlinear parameter fNL that describes the non-Gaussianity in first-order cosmological perturbation theory and analyze the magnitude of this nonlinear parameter. We make a comparison between our result and those of the standard inflation and the canonical warm inflation. We also discuss when the contribution to the non-Gaussianity due to the second-order perturbation theory becomes more important and what the observations predict. We take the Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation as a concrete example to find how the sound speed and the thermal dissipation strength to decide the non-Gaussianity and get a lower bound of the sound speed constrained by Planck.

Weak-gravitational-lensing distortions to the intensity pattern of 21-cm radiation from the dark ages can be decomposed geometrically into curl and curl-free components. Lensing by primordial gravitational waves induces a curl component, while the contribution from lensing by density fluctuations is strongly suppressed. Angular fluctuations in the 21-cm background extend to very small angular scales, and measurements at different frequencies probe different shells in redshift space. There is thus a huge trove of information with which to reconstruct the curl component of the lensing field, allowing tensor-to-scalar ratios conceivably as small as r~10(-9)-far smaller than those currently accessible-to be probed. PMID:23003237

Based on studies in affective neuroscience and evolutionary psychiatry, a tentative new proposal is made here as to the nature and identification of primordial emotional systems. Our model stresses phylogenetic origins of emotional systems, which we believe is necessary for a full understanding of the functions of emotions and additionally suggests that emotional organizing systems play a role in sculpting the brain during ontogeny. Nascent emotional systems thus affect cognitive development. A second proposal concerns two additions to the affective systems identified by Panksepp. We suggest there is substantial evidence for a primary emotional organizing program dealing with power, rank, dominance, and subordination which instantiates competitive and territorial behavior and is an evolutionary contributor to self-esteem in humans. A program underlying disgust reactions which originally functioned in ancient vertebrates to protect against infection and toxins is also suggested. PMID:23316177

The hydrogen-isotope [deuterium/hydrogen (D/H)] ratio of Earth can be used to constrain the origin of its water. However, the most accessible reservoir, Earth's oceans, may no longer represent the original (primordial) D/H ratio, owing to changes caused by water cycling between the surface and the interior. Thus, a reservoir completely isolated from surface processes is required to define Earth's original D/H signature. Here we present data for Baffin Island and Icelandic lavas, which suggest that the deep mantle has a low D/H ratio (δD more negative than -218 per mil). Such strongly negative values indicate the existence of a component within Earth's interior that inherited its D/H ratio directly from the protosolar nebula. PMID:26564850

Previous studies have shown that Oct4 has an essential role in maintaining pluripotency of cells of the inner cell mass (ICM) and embryonic stem cells. However, Oct4 null homozygous embryos die around the time of implantation, thus precluding further analysis of gene function during development. We have used the conditional Cre/loxP gene targeting strategy to assess Oct4 function in primordial germ cells (PGCs). Loss of Oct4 function leads to apoptosis of PGCs rather than to differentiation into a trophectodermal lineage, as has been described for Oct4-deficient ICM cells. These new results suggest a previously unknown function of Oct4 in maintaining viability of mammalian germline. PMID:15486564

It is generally accepted that the production of the light elements (He, D, and Li) during the early stages of the expansion of the Universe is one of the three pillars of the Big Bang theory. The main results obtained from the observational determination of the primordial helium abundance, Yp, and its comparison with the value predicted by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis will be presented, in particular: a) the recognition that galaxies form with Yp in the 0.24 to 0.26 range, b) that Yp was produced during the Big Bang, c) that Yp is fundamental as a critical test for cosmological theories and the baryonic content of the Universe, and d) that the value of Yp provides an observational constraint on the number of light neutrino species, which is smaller than four and probably equal to three. In addition, the present status of the observationally determined Yp value based on extragalactic H II regions will be discussed.

Weak-gravitational-lensing distortions to the intensity pattern of 21-cm radiation from the dark ages can be decomposed geometrically into curl and curl-free components. Lensing by primordial gravitational waves induces a curl component, while the contribution from lensing by density fluctuations is strongly suppressed. Angular fluctuations in the 21-cm background extend to very small angular scales, and measurements at different frequencies probe different shells in redshift space. There is thus a huge trove of information with which to reconstruct the curl component of the lensing field, allowing tensor-to-scalar ratios conceivably as small as r˜10-9—far smaller than those currently accessible—to be probed.

Fundamental processes influencing human growth can be revealed by studying extreme short stature. Using genetic linkage analysis, we find that biallelic loss-of-function mutations in the centrosomal pericentrin (PCNT) gene on chromosome 21q22.3 cause microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II (MOPD II) in 25 patients. Adults with this rare inherited condition have an average height of 100 centimeters and a brain size comparable to that of a 3-month-old baby, but are of near-normal intelligence. Absence of PCNT results in disorganized mitotic spindles and missegregation of chromosomes. Mutations in related genes are known to cause primary microcephaly (MCPH1, CDK5RAP2, ASPM, and CENPJ). PMID:18174396

We show that the prediction for the primordial tensor power spectrum cannot be modified at leading order in derivatives. Indeed, one can always set to unity the speed of propagation of gravitational waves during inflation by a suitable disformal transformation of the metric, while a conformal one can make the Planck mass time independent. Therefore, the tensor amplitude unambiguously fixes the energy scale of inflation. Using the effective field theory of inflation, we check that predictions are independent of the choice of frame, as expected. The first corrections to the standard prediction come from two parity violating operators with three derivatives. Also the correlator ⟨γγγ⟩ is standard and only receives higher derivative corrections. These results hold also in multifield models of inflation and in alternatives to inflation and make the connection between a (quasi-)scale-invariant tensor spectrum and inflation completely robust. PMID:25526111

The hydrogen-isotope [deuterium/hydrogen (D/H)] ratio of Earth can be used to constrain the origin of its water. However, the most accessible reservoir, Earth’s oceans, may no longer represent the original (primordial) D/H ratio, owing to changes caused by water cycling between the surface and the interior. Thus, a reservoir completely isolated from surface processes is required to define Earth’s original D/H signature. Here we present data for Baffin Island and Icelandic lavas, which suggest that the deep mantle has a low D/H ratio (δD more negative than -218 per mil). Such strongly negative values indicate the existence of a component within Earth’s interior that inherited its D/H ratio directly from the protosolar nebula.

We revisit the idea of generating primordial anisotropies at the end of inflation in models of inflation with gauge fields. To be specific we consider the charged hybrid inflation model where the waterfall field is charged under a U(1) gauge field so the surface of end of inflation is controlled both by inflaton and the gauge fields. Using δN formalism properly we find that the anisotropies generated at the end of inflation from the gauge field fluctuations are exponentially suppressed on cosmological scales. This is because the gauge field evolves exponentially during inflation while in order to generate appreciable anisotropies at the end of inflation the spectator gauge field has to be frozen. We argue that this is a generic feature, that is, one can not generate observable anisotropies at the end of inflation within an FRW background.

Strange quark nuggets (SQNs) could be the relics of the cosmological QCD phase transition, and they could very likely be the candidate of cold quark matter if survived the cooling of the later Universe, although the formation and evolution of these SQNs depend on the physical state of the hot QGP (quark-gluon plasma) phase and the state of cold quark matter. We reconsider the possibility of SQNs as cold dark matter, and find that the formation of black holes in primordial halos could be significantly different from the standard scenario. In a primordial halo, the collision between gas and SQNs could be frequent enough, and thus the viscosity acting on each SQN would decrease its angular momentum and make it to sink into the center of the halo, as well as heat the gas. The SQNs with baryon numbers less than 10{sup 35} could assemble in the center of the halo before the formation of primordial stars. A black hole could form by merger of these SQNs, and then its mass could quickly become about 10{sup 3}M{sub s}un or higher, by accreting the surrounding SQNs or gas. The black holes formed in this way could be the seeds for the supermassive black holes at redshift as high as z ∼ 6.

As atoms formed for the first time during primordial recombination, they emitted bound-bound and free-bound radiation leading to spectral distortions to the cosmic microwave background. These distortions might become observable in the future with high-sensitivity spectrometers, and provide a new window into physical conditions in the early universe. The standard multilevel atom method habitually used to compute the recombination spectrum is computationally expensive, impeding a detailed quantitative exploration of the information contained in spectral distortions thus far. In this work it is shown that the emissivity in optically thin allowed transitions can be factored into a computationally expensive but cosmology-independent part and a computationally cheap, cosmology-dependent part. The slow part of the computation consists in pre-computing temperature-dependent effective “conductances,” linearly relating line or continuum intensity to departures from Saha equilibrium of the lowest-order excited states (2s and 2p), that can be seen as “voltages.” The computation of these departures from equilibrium as a function of redshift is itself very fast, thanks to the effective multilevel atom method introduced in an earlier work. With this factorization, the recurring cost of a single computation of the recombination spectrum is only a fraction of a second on a standard laptop, more than four orders of magnitude shorter than standard computations. The spectrum from helium recombination can be efficiently computed in an identical way, and a fast code computing the full primordial recombination spectrum with this method will be made publicly available soon.